Gerda's touch — earrings made of silver with diamonds, covered with white rhodium

O, if I could once again feel her gentle, weightless touch on my warm cheek. If I could but keep from frightening her with my fervent desire to feel...If I could, I would remember her like this: a luminous, dancing star descending from the gates of the open sky thrown wide open. She ran out into the cold, barefoot and defenceless. She flew to me that December night and transformed into an instant. She became a caress from paradise, a kiss from heaven. She was my snowflake, my Gerda’s touch.

Just like the protagonist from Ray Bradbury’s «Dandelion Wine», I’d like to hide you in a matchbox, put you in the freezer and meet you again in July. But you are but a mere moment, as elusive as time itself, as nimble as a river. You are all-absorbing and yet remarkably inconspicuous. The snow’s rugged embrace takes you unto itself, and by the morning you shall become part of it. You will not speak then of your unique beauty, your starlike patterns, about how enchanting you were in my eyes when you descended from the dark night sky. 

My fragment of heaven, who shaped you so on your descent to the earth? Who freed you knowing you would be forced to disappear tomorrow? Stay with me. If you cannot until the summer, stay at least until the spring. I wish to share with you the joy of each impending celebration for you yourself are a celebration.

And she stayed — Gerda’s silver touch remained as a symbol of happy holidays and as a sign from the heavens. It was a child of the greatest of loves — that which the heavens and earth have for one another.