- Joined
- Dec 12, 2016
- Messages
- 960
The trend as time goes on seems to be huge families turning into much smaller ones. As I touch base with all of the childhood friends and even my own bff and the few close girlfriends I can count on one hand we all have one thing in common. We all came from VERY large families. That is to say our grandmothers had many children, so we have many aunts and uncles, and cousins. But as we grew up, many family members passed away, and a lot of us went our separate ways. Long gone are the days where families live on the same block just a few houses away from one another sharing 2 flats [we literally did this most of our lives]. My grandmother had 6 children. My grandfather died young of a heart attack. My aunt [the first of her 6 children to pass away] died at the age of 32. Gram died not shortly after that.
I will spare you the details of the rest of this story-and just say that 40 years later [leading to present day] there are only 3 of my grandmothers children left. Covid got mom last year. I am the "procurer" of peoples jewelry in the family so to speak. And while I am not particularly emotional about much I am VERY sentimental. My entire family is from the Midwest. I have since married and moved out west. After moms memorial service I realized...I had an entire box of jewelry [4 generations] that no one would ever see. No one would ever know was here. No one would know who it belonged to, or where it came from. None of my mothers side of the family would ever even know it existed. I went through every piece and took it all out. My grandmothers wedding ring, my mothers wedding ring, my aunts thick heringbone necklace [you remember the ones that used to rip the hair out of everyon's neck! LOL!!], and several other pieces that were never going to be worn again. I went to my jeweler and asked him to create a bangle for my remaining 3 aunts. Devastated by their losses over the years, I wanted them to have something to look down upon every day and bring them joy. Most jewelers would have just scrapped the gold and ordered 3 bracelets with random stones and been done with it. But I know my goldsmith personally and knew he actually does the melting himself. What he created, was a piece of my families history. I face timed my aunts last night and told them it was coming in the mail for Christmas, so they could look down and see their mom, their sisters and brother with them always. This contains my grandmothers gold, my moms gold, my gold, and my aunts gold. I call it the "[family last name]" bangle. Thanks for reading..just wanted to share.
I will spare you the details of the rest of this story-and just say that 40 years later [leading to present day] there are only 3 of my grandmothers children left. Covid got mom last year. I am the "procurer" of peoples jewelry in the family so to speak. And while I am not particularly emotional about much I am VERY sentimental. My entire family is from the Midwest. I have since married and moved out west. After moms memorial service I realized...I had an entire box of jewelry [4 generations] that no one would ever see. No one would ever know was here. No one would know who it belonged to, or where it came from. None of my mothers side of the family would ever even know it existed. I went through every piece and took it all out. My grandmothers wedding ring, my mothers wedding ring, my aunts thick heringbone necklace [you remember the ones that used to rip the hair out of everyon's neck! LOL!!], and several other pieces that were never going to be worn again. I went to my jeweler and asked him to create a bangle for my remaining 3 aunts. Devastated by their losses over the years, I wanted them to have something to look down upon every day and bring them joy. Most jewelers would have just scrapped the gold and ordered 3 bracelets with random stones and been done with it. But I know my goldsmith personally and knew he actually does the melting himself. What he created, was a piece of my families history. I face timed my aunts last night and told them it was coming in the mail for Christmas, so they could look down and see their mom, their sisters and brother with them always. This contains my grandmothers gold, my moms gold, my gold, and my aunts gold. I call it the "[family last name]" bangle. Thanks for reading..just wanted to share.
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