The hairdresser found my grandmother’s pin in my wedding hair

Dear Delyara, I got married today. While the hairdresser was undoing my hair after the reception, she found a small silver pin hidden beneath the curls. I knew immediately what it was. My grandmother used to wear it every Sunday. She died when I was nineteen. My mother must have put it into my hair without telling me. I became angry at first because Mum knows I dislike surprises, especially sentimental ones. Then she admitted she had carried the pin in her handbag for twelve years waiting for my wedding. Twelve years. Through my terrible relationships, the year I said I would never marry, the engagement that ended, every Christmas when she probably wondered whether she would ever use it. She kept one tiny piece of her mother ready for a day I had not yet chosen. I held the pin during the taxi ride to the hotel while my new husband talked about how exhausted he was. He asked why I was crying. I said because today was beautiful. That was true. I did not know how to explain that happiness had become almost painful at the exact moment I realized two generations of women had been quietly waiting to stand somewhere inside it with me.