Most recently my husband and I took a long awaited trip, one that we had planned pre pandemic. It was an important trip for my husband, as we went to Scotland and Norway his ancestral homes. The trip departed from Amsterdam, so we took advantage of a few days in the Netherlands as well.

On the flight to our destination and leading up to the trip, my husband and I were reminiscing about our parents and talking about how much his parents would have enjoyed taking this adventure. It was during this conversation that I was reminded of something that my mother always stated to me. I am not quite sure where this saying came from and why she chose to tell me this, but it was usually when we were alone together and completely out of the clear blue. She would say, “ the world is your oyster and you are the pearl.”

Being a young girl at the time and not very worldly, I often wondered what she meant. On other occasions, she would tell me that she could not quite figure me out and I was difficult to understand. With that in mind, my mother suffered with a mental illness and at times she was quite challenging for me to understand. So, I guess that was a mutual feeling between the two of us. Regardless of our differences, we did love each other.

When she was stating, “the world is your oyster, and you are the pearl”. I never imagined that I would still be thinking about those words all these years later. But as things happen, this journey finally helped me come to a realization of what she may have meant.

You see on this trip, something more than the conversation with my husband triggered that memory of my mother’s statement. Several days after arriving aboard our cruise ship and while sailing at sea, I picked up a magazine that was on the coffee table in our cabin. While flipping through the pages, I landed on a magazine article titled, “ The World is your Oyster”. Of course, I was drawn in and proceeded to read the article which was about unique travel destinations.

About an hour later, my husband and I went down to the guest services desk on the ship to make an inquiry. I kid you not, but the young lady that waited on us was named Pearl. At that moment, I knew that my mother’s spirit was traveling with me on that trip.

After thinking about that coincidence for a bit, I concluded that as a child, my mother had great hopes and dreams for me. When she told me that the “world was my oyster and I was the pearl” she in essence was telling me that I could go and do and be whatever I wanted to be in the world. I did not quite understand it at the time, but now I see that she had a confidence in me, something at that time that I felt I was lacking. She was telling me in her own way, that I had the ability to go and be whatever i wanted to be and to make my dreams come true. I do believe that if you work hard enough toward your goals and dreams that the world is your oyster, and you are the pearl. I also realize, that maybe I was not such a mystery to my mother after all.

My hope for you is that you achieve all your goals and dreams. Surely, your view will become that “the world is your oyster, and you are the pearl.”