It wasn’t just a scarf, it was a Time Machine.

We went into the colorful gallery. Scarves everywhere. Paintings on the wall in the same images. I recognized immediately the signature on the scarves. Vera. The same name I had pulled out of my mother’s bottom dresser drawer for years.

I wasn’t allowed to “play” with them. But I could touch. Admire. She even showed me how to tie around my chubby, youthful neck — a neck that would one day grow into its own curiousity and self-esteem. It felt smooth and empowering. She tied the loop and the name Vera hung proudly. “Who is Vera?” I asked. “She’s one of us,” she said. That’s all I needed to know.

I had no idea of money at the time. It wasn’t about that. Yesterday in the gallery, the curator explained that Vera wanted all women to feel beautiful, to have the chance to accessorize themselves into something more, and so she created her line to be sold from Bergdorf’s to Herberger’s. Scarved and strong, my mother, in my eyes, surpassed both.

I wear them all the time. In different names. Different colors. Purchased in France, or at Goodwill, it doesn’t really matter. Because to be grouped with the grace (which means for me, not ease, but beauty and strength amidst all of life’s adversity) — to be called by grace itself, her gently saying, “She’s one of us.”