The Red Coral Bracelet

I guess you could say it all started with a bracelet. A small piece of red coral was put on a length of fishing line. That bracelet started everything.

I made it when I was 10 and gave it to my older brother, Luke, on his 13 birthday. He refused to wear it because he said that it was girly. But I knew he loved it because he kept it in the box Uncle Chris sent him from overseas.

When I was 18, Luke got deployed to Afghanistan. I found the bracelet a day before he got on the plane with all the other United States Marines. The next day, I clipped it on his wrist and told him to never take it off. He said that he never would and when he got back he would get me one.

That bracelet had been through everything. War, peace, hate, love, arguments, hugs, and Marines. It survived Marines and that's a huge accomplishment for such a small thing. It also lived for 10 years in my family and my family is a little different, to put it nicely.

So here is the story of the Red Coral Bracelet and how it changed a lot of lives accidentally.