Angie's Earrings
A Poem in Honor of My Cousin
Angie’s Earrings
My cousin Angie took me to the mall
to get my ears pierced at thirteen,
a looong overdue rite of passage.
I can still feel the prick of pain
followed by the instant
aura of glamor.
She always treated me that way—
like I had worth and sparkle.
Even though I was several
years younger, Angie never
saw me as just a pesky kid.
When I was in middle school,
she took me to a college poetry
workshop while she studied for
nursing tests in the hallway all
because she knew how much
I treasured ink and page!
Who does that? Why, Angela.
Her full name twinkled
like a jewel in my mind,
and my child’s heart knew
without saying that kindness
was just her way of being.
Maybe that’s why Angie wore
the most hilarious earrings as a nurse . . .
a milk carton and a cookie
with a big bite out of it,
or a hydrant and a dalmatian,
all to give her patients a good laugh—
A good life.
My cousin died too young,
hit head-on by a driver on drugs while
coming home late from work one night.
Yet even decades later, I have never
forgotten the thrill of watching
The Last Unicorn at a sleepover
with her, or choosing my first pair
of pierced earrings together at Claire’s,
because perhaps I still wish to
sparkle something a little
like Angie and her
happy earrings.
I sometimes wonder why it seems like the kindest people I have known in life leave before me. After all, didn’t they deserve this shared span of time more than—
Yet the random whims of mortality deal out their end, and suddenly I’m left only with softly fraying memories, like gentle ghosts, echoing their presence.
My cousin Angie was a genuinely loving person who went out of her way to be truly kind to me when she didn’t have to make that effort, and I’ll never forget that about her.
I don’t think I will ever become as gentle-hearted as Angie, but I believe the quiet beauty of even a severed-short existence such as hers can still teach me something today.
I heard this starlit saying years ago, and I hold it like a silver seam against my own heart when life gets too hard—remember that even when a star goes out, the last path of its light continues onward. Rays travel forward, shining steadfast.
All the goodness of a life (having been) may yet add light to my own (being now)—
If I let it. If I learn. I bind this bright truth to my own silhouette in the dark.
Poem Cited:
“Angie’s Earrings” (October 2025). Northern Narratives, 9. 64-65.