Let Them Have The Jewelry

When a loved one dies, memories flood our consciousness and conversation. Naturally, the predominant discussion is of how much the deceased will be missed. That’s not all that happens. As a dear friend once told me, “families fall apart during weddings and funerals”. All too often, fighting over material things occur resulting in hurt feelings. While everyone else is fighting over the jewelry, there is something you can do that has far move value than a piece of metal or stone.

As a family member who is “entitled” to the physical evidence of a person’s life, consider retrieving items to tell your love one’s story. Gather things such as letters from friends and picture. Gather that picture taken with co-workers, of a special occasion, of a favorite car, a best friend, in a favorite outfit, picture with their children, grandchildren, siblings and with you when young and in later years. Gather those hand written speeches, poems, and essays. Anything as evidence of things or memories the person was most proud of.

In the midst of your grief, pause for a moment and think of your loved one’s remaining family members 20 years from now. All of those lovely memories you have will be lost to them. Will you even remember?

You are far too busy and emotional to think clearly now. So don’t. Just designate a box or area and label it “family treasures”. As you come across items that are unique pieces of a person’s story, put them in the treasure box or area and forget it for now.

In a calmer moment make a list of what stories these items tell. What was that special occasion? Where was the speech given? Who was the best friend? Years as member of ….. Years as employee of …. Years as owner of……..

Buy a scrapbook.

Give each story at least one page. Sure, you can use more pages but not so many that the story becomes boring. If the story is that intriguing, use a separate scrapbook.

You can also frame items and arrange them on a special wall. Include a caption for each item. Write the entire story and attach it to the back.

Enjoy the journey.

This will be a sweet exercise for you and you may be surprised at the special family gratitude you will experience. In their later years when the jewelry is lost, forgotten, or too expensive to wear, they really want to remember their long lost love one and come to you. As proof of this, the topic of this article (“Let Them Have The Jewelry”) came up at a recent book signing between the author and two sisters who stopped by. One sister pointed to the other and said “she got all the photographs” from their father’s photography business. They agreed because the one sister rescued the photographs, today the sisters spend many hours together remembering the good times made possible by this pictorial history.

Be aware that it is not just your family but family friends as well. For those key people, put his or her name on a vanilla envelop (not folder) in large print in the upper right corner. As you find things put them in the appropriate envelop. You can later decide to make scrapbook pages of each person and detail why they were important to your family. When you are done you can even make presents of the remaining extra items.

History is made of the things you plan to discard. A local history museum is looking for rights memorabilia. Do you have any? Your donation could make you a historically significant person for generations.

You may take everyday encounters with people you know as insignificant. Then one day you realize you are the common denominator to highly successful people. Is it possible you were the key to this success? Why is it that so many world renowned saxophonist coming from your associates? Do you have pictures? Did you write the stories in a journal? You may not need this, your grand children may.