This is the beautiful mother-child necklace Ryan and Rob gave me for Mothers' Day. It has both a large and a small pendant, each imprinted with a blooming lotus flower and a bud. I knew that lotuses were common in Asian art, so today I did some internet research on their symbolism in Chinese culture. According to one website I found on Chinese painting, “The Chinese words for lotus have the same meanings as to bind or connect.” Another website on Chinese painting states: “[One] symbolic characteristic of the Chinese lotus flower leads from the observation that the plant's stalk is easy to bend in two, but is very hard to break because of its many strong sinuous fibers. Poets use this to represent a close unbreakable relationship between…the members within a family….” Perfect.