When my Grandma Ramona decided to stop dialysis, I drove down to visit her in the hospital. Her best friend Miss Sheila was there, working her connections to secure a room at the hospice home Grandma had her heart set on.
We tried to whisper updates behind her back while the nurse distracted her. The second the nurse left, Grandma looked over and asked, “Now what were y’all saying about my room?”
She was sharp like that until the very end
My grandmother had eyes like a hawk, a mind like a steel trap, and a laugh that shook her whole body. She told stories so vividly they became yours too.
My favorite was always the story of Ruby.
Back in New Orleans, Grandma thought she was tough until a girl named Ruby proved otherwise. She loved telling the story of talking smack before Ruby turned around and whooped her “up one block and down another.” Every time she told it, she laughed until she cried, remembering the only girl who could beat her.
That was Ramona.
She was complicated, resilient, funny, stylish, stubborn, loving, and completely original. She earned a PhD, became a professor, raised three children while my grandfather was away for military service, and later became the center of every holiday once her children had families of their own.
She laid a foundation for us all, in a time when all the odds were stacked against her.
But before I understood any of those accomplishments, I understood her relationship with jewelry.
My grandmother loved jewelry — not in a precious way, but in a deeply personal one. Her pieces marked the moments in her life.
Silver chains. Gold bracelets. Ornate rings. Delicate earrings. Loose gemstones waiting for a setting. Everything had a story.
As a kid, I’d hide in the racks while she scoured thrift stores for hours. I’d turn a custom bracelet in my hand as she described how she’d chosen each charm. I’d sneak into her room and sift through her jewelry cabinet. I’d watch as she put her look together before leaving the house, the way some people prepare a speech.
Without realizing it, I was learning.
Jewelry could be armor.
Jewelry could tell people who you were before you even opened your mouth.
Jewelry could make ordinary moments feel ceremonial.
Years later, when I turned to metalsmithing myself, I realized she was my first jeweler.
Not because she made jewelry, but because she taught me what she understood instinctively: jewelry is memory. It’s identity. It’s craftsmanship. It’s history.
I wear her silver bracelets every day now.
Since she passed a month ago, small moments keep resurfacing. The way she always answered the phone with “Hey baby.” The French bread and spicy salami she sliced up for us during New Orleans summers. The scented salts she dropped into my bath. The opal earrings she gave me in college that I wore constantly. Holding her hand in hospice. The last kiss she gave me before I left.
When someone so full of life leaves this earth, there’s no way around the void they leave behind. But you fill that void with all the moments and lessons and feelings of that person. Their stories. Their laugh. Their jewelry on your body.
My Grandma is gone now.
But never, ever forgotten.
My IG: @natashafontaine
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Natasha Clark is the founder and designer of Natasha Fontaine, a modern jewelry house creating sculptural, hand-finished pieces rooted in craftsmanship, identity, and intentional design. After a career spanning the music industry, experiential art, and corporate creative leadership, she turned to metalsmithing to build a slower, more personal body of work centered on ritual, lineage, and enduring style.
