I bought these earrings in Tucson, Arizona, in 2003. I went with my husband and sons to visit my mother and stepdad in Phoenix and my father and siblings in Tucson.

These earrings have traveled to Rhode Island, Iowa, Illinois, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Hawaii, and Canada. These are hockey earrings. They’ve seen my youngest son play lots of hockey games in many cities. I have a rule about jewelry when I travel—only one pair of earrings and one necklace. These are the earrings that almost always made the cut.

I’ve worn these earrings more than any other pair of earrings I own, so maybe that makes them my favorite pair. As my mother would say, “You can wear them with blue jeans or an evening dress.”

I wore this pair to Winnipeg, Canada, to a hockey tournament. On Saturday morning, I was waiting in the car for my husband to come out of the hotel, so we could head to the rink.

After he got in the car, he said, “Do you feel naked?”

“What?” I hadn’t forgot to put on my pants. (This was long before COVID-19 and pants-less Zoom meetings and endless jokes about people forgetting to wear pants.)

He laughed and asked again, “Do you feel naked?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He extended a closed fist toward me then opened his fingers. Nestled on his palm were my teardrop earrings.

“I thought you might want these, so you didn’t feel naked,” he said.

“Yes, thanks.” I lifted my earrings off his palm and leaned over to kiss him before dressing my bare earlobes.

He had remembered that I had once said I felt naked if I forgot to wear earrings when I left the house.

I’ve never forgotten that he remembered.