When I was sixteen, my best friend gave me a charm bracelet for Christmas. 

It was silver, and shiny, and I couldn’t wait to put it on. Hanging from the bracelet was a little silver bell that jingled whenever I moved my arm. Eventually, I added a miniature wagon with wheels that turned, a tiny Christmas tree, a Scottie dog, and a charm from my aunt and uncle, engraved with my name and high school graduation date.

But the best charm on that bracelet was unquestionably the one that came from Paris.

When our next-door neighbor took her family on vacation to Europe, one of the places on their itinerary was the French capital. I was chartreuse with envy. Paris! Boulevards… baguettes… French boys… le sigh!

Growing up in Northern Virginia, most of my friends were military brats. So they were a well-travelled bunch. They’d been to Europe numerous times – Germany, England, Italy, Japan – as well as far-flung places like the Philippines, Cuba, Australia, and New Zealand.

Me? I hadn’t been anywhere outside the United States, unless you counted an afternoon trip from Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Canada (which I didn’t).

So when our neighbor returned and said she’d brought me back a present from France, I was mega-excited. What could it be? A scarf? A beret? A box of macarons from Laudurée? Whatever it was, it had come all the way from PARIS, FRANCE.

What could be cooler than that? Answer:  rien, cherie.

The box she handed me was tiny, and white. It was far too small to be a scarf, or a beret, or macarons. I tried to mask my disappointment. What if it was a brooch, the kind my grandmother wore pinned to the lapel of her winter coat? Ugh. Or a pair of earrings I’d never wear? I didn’t have pierced ears, anyway.

Scarcely daring to breathe, ready to politely pretend I loved it, whatever it was, I lifted the lid, and gasped. There, nestled in a cloud of white padding, was a tiny Eiffel Tower charm. I lifted it out and held it up.

“Oh, I love it!” I breathed.

“I thought it would make a nice addition to your charm bracelet,” the neighbor said, pleased by my reaction.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.” I smiled. “I mean, Merci beaucoup.”

I still have that bracelet, and the little Eiffel Tower still dangles from it. Every now and then I take it out and put it on. Although our neighbor passed away several years ago after losing a long battle with cancer, and although it’s been many years since the day she gave me that present, it will always remind me of her.

That charm from Paris was a small thing, a tiny thing. But to an untraveled, sixteen-year-old girl from Northern Virginia, it meant the world.