Little Treasures

Everyone has something of significant personal value: It doesn’t matter how small or large or how expensive it or they were, we all have them.

A lot of us will also know someone that has lost something of significant personal worth: One of the things that still upsets me when I think about it is that a beautiful charm bracelet which was given to my mum by her dad before he died in the late 1960’s was cruelly stolen from her jewellery box, along with a number of other items, when our house was burgled many years ago. That one bracelet, had more meaning to my mum that probably anything else she has ever had or owned (apart from her two beautiful sons and two wonderful grandchildren, of course!)

I have a couple of items of value: One is a compass. There is a story which shall remain personal and only a few people will ever know, attached to that compass and it’s an item that won’t always be in my possession but will always be close. The other item is the set of cufflinks pictured.

I genuinely don’t believe that anyone will ever give me a gift that has more personal meaning or importance than these: Two solid matte silver cufflinks with a finger print taken from Isabelle in one and from Emilio in the other. I can’t remember how long I have owned these, I know Emilio was only very small so perhaps 4 years or so.

They have always been very special to me but, as time has moved on and as life has changed recently, they have come to hold even more value and, what’s interesting, is how they are used and how Isabelle and Emilio recognise that they get used.

My entire working life I have been a fan off the cufflink: It’s a much smarter way of fastening a shirt cuff. If I were to move back to just a button I would perhaps feel a little like a school boy again. As my career has progressed, I have collected a decent collection of maybe 25 or 30 pairs of cufflinks and, to accompany these, albeit never seen, for the last 5 years or so, I have favoured shirts that require collar stiffeners and choose to use solid stainless steel ones rather than the plastic ones traditionally provided with the shirt. It’s just a matter of choice but for me, that choice is reflected in consistently high standard of appearance. There’s no arrogance in that: I’m no oil painting but I always attempt to look as good as possible!

Cufflinks are, traditionally not meant to be worn in a certain way: By that I mean, there is a right and wrong way to fasten them and a right way to pass them through the holes but they are not normally specific to a left or right side.

Quite why then I have ended up with a defined side for each of these cufflinks I am not sure but I can’t and don’t want to change it now.

Isabelle’s print always goes on my left sleeve and Emilio always on my right. It’s been that way around since I very first used them. Whether it’s because we write left to write and Isabelle was first born and therefore took order, I don’t know. Is it because, aurally, ‘Isabelle and Emilo’ sounds better than ‘Emilio and Isabelle’ and that order would be written left to right? I don’t know. But whatever the reason, this is what happens.

The extension to this is how this habit has fed into the rest of life.

Isabelle noticed a couple of years ago that she always goes on my left and if she was near me while getting ready, would want me to wear their links and would pass me hers first with a ‘that side, Daddy’…and then I realised that when we walk down the street, she always takes my hand that side whether I am wearing the cufflinks or not. And Emilio, as he has got older, now recognises his side on my shirt and naturally walks on my right.

In the car, Isabelle sits in the left hand seat and Emilio sits in the right (and yet in their mum's car, it’s the other way round).

Subliminally or intentionally, this habit of mine has impacted them and how we interact, and the knock on effect for me has been that, physically there or not, at the times I am walking down the street and want to feel them near me, I can clench my fists by my side and feel their hands in mine and picture them strolling next to me, when driving, I can look in the rear view mirror and see their little faces looking back at me. And always, on the days when I need a bit of good fortune or just need a little support at work, I put on a crisp white TM Lewin shirt, place Isabelle on my left, Emilio on my right and head off knowing that my little treasures, are right there with me.