I would be interested to read about people's rosary stories. A very holy Dominican sister recently showed me her rosary which she had bought with her pocket money as a child. It has blue glass beads. What I love is that she still has and still uses it. My grandmother gave me my first rosary. I was about eleven and my younger sister two years younger. We received them as Christmas gifts and were a bit puzzled about what they were. When our father explained that they were not jewellery but for praying with, I was a bit, shall I say, underwhelmed... Dad couldn't remember quite how it is said but he explained how one would say the actual chaplet (and not the tail which he didn't know). My rosary was blue with gilt chain and was probably adult sized. I kept it with me throughout university, when I had my conversion experience and faith became a living reality in my life. I didn't really start with the rosary (I mean actually saying it) until I was living in the USA as a young wife and mother. I met a lady who followed True Devotion and she ran a rosary group. I asked her to set up one to explain Marian devotion to those of us who knew very little and she did. I loved taking out the faithful blue rosary and using it. My grandmother had died in 1981, a year before we went to the States, and it was a link with her. She had been faithful to the daily rosary (for some reason I didn't think to ask her how to say it). Sadly I lost the rosary - rummaging in my bag in the street I think it must have dropped out. I prayed longtime for its return but never saw it again. Josie, the Marian lady, said that if you lose a precious rosary, it will be found by someone who needs it more. I hope so. Years later I had the idea to pray privately to Mary to send me another blue rosary very like my old one and not long after a friend gave me a similar blue rosary from Rome. I admit to being a bit of a rosary collector at times and I have phases when I prefer one to another. Mostly, I like corded rosaries which don't break as easily. I had one from Dachau which I lost in St Peters Square. I hope a tourist found it! I'm also a rosary maker and can mend chain rosaries (I have my grandmother's old rosary which I have been able to mend). I make all kinds of rosaries: chain, cord and knotted. How I learned to do this is another story and was also an answer to prayer.
