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My eighth Christmas was only a couple of weeks away, and I wanted to buy my mother a present. She already had scores of homemade gifts: finger paintings, clay sculptures, jewelry, and other clumsily crafted knickknacks.

I think her favorite was the jewelry. Mom would model dried macaroni and tinfoil strung on yarn like they were rubies and pearls, plastic beads on fishing line like they were a diamond tennis bracelet. I liked seeing my creations flaunted around town, at dinner parties and baseball games. But, as I grew out of toddlerhood, I began to wonder why she wore my homemade adornments as though she actually liked them. Maybe she didn't want to hurt my feelings. Maybe she had horrendous taste.

This year, though, I wanted to get her the kind of jewelry my dad gave her—not the kind you make, but the kind you buy in a store. Jewelry that comes in red velvety boxes. Jewelry that doesn't smell like paste. A daunting task for a second-grader, considering my 7-year-old bank roll, but one that I was determined to complete.

My golden opportunity presented itself at school one day when we grade-schoolers were ushered into the cafeteria to shop at "Santa's Workshop," in which some company brought in a couple truckloads of cheap gifts that kids could buy for their family and friends.

Theoretically, it was a chance for us to buy Christmas presents autonomously, an alternative to going to Target with dad after Christmas Eve dinner. Realistically, it was a chance for us to buy ourselves pre-Christmas presents, free from our parents' discerning eyes. We'd talk our parents out of a handful of dollar bills, shop at Santa's Workshop, and leave school with crappy toys we would have thumbed our noses at in the toy store.

I was ogling a "remote" controlled car ("remote" in the sense that the car was tethered to the controller by a 2-foot-long-cord), and the $10 in my front pocket was about to make its grand exit when a plastic jewelry box caught my attention. Inside was my mother's favorite necklace—or at least its twin. Seven Christmases previous when I was just a newborn stocking stuffer, my father had given my mother a diamond solitaire. She had lost it just a month or two ago, and the last few weeks had been filled with her mourning and searching, searching and mourning for that lost necklace. And here it was, of all places, right in my school cafeteria. Now I had the opportunity to reunite mom with her long-lost necklace—and it only cost $10! Plus it came with matching earrings! In a blur of excitement, I snatched up the little plastic box and threw my $10 at the lady behind the checkout counter, lest anyone discover this severely underpriced treasure and force me to return it or fork over more money.

I carried my perfect gift home that afternoon, safely tucked inside my coat pocket in a brown paper bag. I was so afraid that I would lose it before Christmas (after all, my careful mother had lost hers) that, when Mom asked me how school was, I reached inside my jacket and, like a magician digging for a pair of rabbit ears, pulled the wrinkled paper package out and handed it to my mom.

"Merry early Christmas!" I squealed, and insisted that she open her gift at once.

She complied. And then she whispered "Oh ... honey," the way mothers do when they get gifts they really like.

"Look! It's just like the one you lost!" I chortled, helping her put it on.

"I know, it's beautiful," she said and gave me a very big hug.

Mom wore her necklace every day for the next two weeks, and told complete strangers how I had restored her favorite piece of jewelry. I was a hero.

On Christmas morning, while we all opened presents, she wore it, too. That evening as I sat in the living room, constructing the world's largest Lego castle, Mom appeared in the doorway. She looked terrified.

"It's gone," she choked. "I did it again."

We scoured the house, searching through piles of wrapping paper, through garbage cans, in sinks, and under tables. Her new necklace was gone. After two hours of hunting, she and I were down in the basement living room, the only room left to search. At least she still has the earrings, I kept telling myself.

We were in tears as we combed the room, both of us wrought with failure. Then I felt something tug on my sock. There was the necklace, embedded in the shag carpet. I picked it up and handed it to my mom. That didn't stop her from crying.

After that, whenever Mom wore her necklace (mostly on "special occasions"), she constantly touched her neck to make sure it was still there. And years later, long after I've learned what cubic zirconia is, she still wears that $10 necklace from time to time, and tells me that it's still her favorite. Next to the ones I made for her, of course.