The Story of the Memorial Tear Charm

Dear Friends,

It has been about six years since I decided to share my very personal symbol I called the Memorial Tear. I am a jewelry designer and love to capture Scripture and truth in symbols.

The Memorial Tear was not an idea but an experience. I did not sit down to draw a piece for grief, but did sit down with a pencil while I was crying.

The loss of two people I love, and other painful circumstances, took me into a period of grief I thought would never end. Some time in the midst of that, I had my fifth child and only found time to draw early in the mornings while everyone slept. One of those mornings, I realized I had been mindlessly drawing the shape of a tear over and over. My first thought was that I wasn't just crying tears but now drawing them as well. I took a portion of another design and placed it over the tear and cried. The simple drawing of a rose and a tear captured both my love and loss. For days I considered my drawing and thought of the words, love never dies. I decided to study the passage from 1 Corinthians 13: 8, 13 and learned that love is the one virtue that goes on into eternity. My secret symbol became very consoling, even death could not end love. I had a pendant made and people began to ask about it. I had many requests for the small symbol but could not bring myself to share it. A short time later my sister-in-law and her mother lost three people in their family in six months. There was nothing we as a family could do to change such overwhelming pain but we could give them a tear. It was their response to the gift that moved me to continue sharing the piece and the consolation I felt was from God.

I agreed to place the pendant in the back of our catalog. We sold 20 a month, then 20 a week, then 100 a week and I realized that as the numbers grew and the stories came back to me- God had done for each of them what he did for me. The grace of the piece continues as if God assigned a healing, consoling truth now passed on to hundreds of thousands of grieving people. The grace and the impact of the Memorial Tear have nothing to do with me but everything to do with God.

I wear my tear that now speaks deeply of the treasure I carry with me. God did not ask me to forget but to cherish the gift left within that tear- love that never ends. We grieve because we love. To love another person is our greatest privilege, because love is the nature of God. Woven into our human failings is something wonderfully pure and eternal- love so deep that after it is sifted from our imperfections, it reflects the divine reality of God.

If what we share is the same as who God is, then it is true, love never ends.

Kathy Bernu