She Said It Every Time I Left the House

My mother never made a big deal out of it. There was no lecture. No long explanation. Just a look... that look... and then the words, every single time:

"You're not going to put some earrings on?"

It didn't matter where I was going. School. The grocery store. Church. An afternoon errand that nobody would remember. She said it like it was law. And honestly, as a kid, I thought she was just being extra.

I didn't understand it then. I do now.

My mother, Iris Yvette Leasure, wasn't talking about earrings. She was talking about intention. She was teaching me that before you step out into a world that will try to tell you who you are, you decide first. You look in the mirror. You put something on that says I'm here on purpose. And then you walk out that door ready.

She passed away from bladder cancer in 2007. I was 17 years old. And after she died, I kept wearing earrings. Every single day. I never stopped. That was hers, and I held onto it. But I stopped writing. I stopped expressing myself in the ways that required me to feel something. Grief has a way of shutting down the parts of you that are the most tender... not all at once, but slowly, until one day you realize you've been going through the motions in plain sight.

It took years. It took falling apart and putting myself back together more than once. But somewhere in that mess, I started making things with my hands. I started shaping clay. And every time I finished a pair of earrings, I heard her voice.

You're not going to put any earrings on?.

That's how Iris Studio Jewelry was born. Not from a business plan. Not from a market opportunity. From a daughter who missed her mother and found a way to keep her close.

This month is Women's History Month. And I've been thinking about the women who shaped us. Not the ones in the textbooks, but the ones in our kitchens. The ones who pressed our clothes on Sunday morning. The ones who checked our ears before we walked out the door. The ones whose lessons we didn't appreciate until they were gone.

My mother was a Girl Scout leader. She taught young girls about confidence and creativity and showing up for each other long before I ever did. She had us making beaded jewelry with our hands, learning what it felt like to create something beautiful and wear it with pride. She planted seeds in every girl she touched.

I'm still planting hers.

Every piece I sculpt, every earring I shape and paint and finish, it's her. It's her voice. It's her hands guiding mine. And every woman who puts on a pair of ISJ earrings and stands a little taller, that's her legacy, alive and moving through the world.

So this Women's History Month, I'm not just celebrating the women who made history. I'm celebrating the women who made us. The ones who taught us to show up. The ones whose wisdom lives in the small things, a phrase repeated so many times it became part of who we are.

Who was that woman for you? What did she always say?

I'd love to hear. Because that's what this is really about. Not jewelry. Not business. Connection. Culture. Confidence. The things our mothers gave us before we even knew we needed them.

Never leave the house without your earrings.

— Kenyotta