Grandmother's Earrings

Having no children to inherit her earrings, my Aunt Fita always said I would inherit the earrings she had inherited from her mother. She used to tease me that I would have to take them off her ears after she was dead. Since my ears were not pierced, she made it a point to insist I have them pierced when she got to her 60's. I was then in my 30's and kept evading the issue by saying that my only daughter had pierced ears and I would give them to her. My aunt insisted that I had to put them on myself and pass them on to my daughter only when I died. So at the age of 36, I finally pierced my ears and enjoyed the result so much that I actually ended up percing my ears four times so that I could wear multiple earrings. Because of a complication of one of the piercings, I can now wear only seven earrings at a time, but I like the number 7, so I left it like that.
In 1992, my aunt fell down and injured a hip and was in the hospital. I talked to her on the phone because I was living here in Fort Worth then, but I had visited her for a week the year before. I also talked to the doctor and he said it was not serious but it would be nice if I went to visit her again. I talked to her again and told her I was leaving in a few hours to go see her and her answer made me panic. She told me she had taken off the earrings and that Belen, her young caretaker would have them for me. I was very worried later as I was about to leave for the bus, I got another phone call from the hospital telling ,me that she had died. When I arrived at her apartment, in tears, later that day, Belen met me at the door and immediately handed me the earrings in a little baggy. She said that my aunt had insisted she give them to me as soon as I arrived.