The Jewelry Box

The ceiling of my father’s church fascinates me. I’m looking up imagining it’s Noah’s Arc turned upside down. The mellowed yellowed boards fit together perfectly. Its boat hull shape creates a very nice acoustic for congregational singing.

Dan and I are settling in to my father’s pew waiting for service to begin while Dad fidgets with his hearing aids. I wonder if he’s turning them on or off right now. Folks are greeting us on the way to their seats. We’re quite exotic, visitors to Alabama all the way from our New Jersey cranberry farm. Dan’s shakes hands with one Dad’s friends and explains what is happening in the bogs right now. A gentle hand pats me on the back in greeting. I turn and say good morning to the lady who stops in to clean Dad’s house when he asks her. After she asks how long we’ll be visiting and how my mother is doing, she lowers her voice to a whisper; “You need to get your mother’s jewelry box and take it on home with you. I been worrying something fierce about that thing. Anybody could just walk into that house and make off with it.”

Daddy must have been turning the hearing aids up, because he says, “I told her that last time.” It’s true. Dad said he wished I would take the jewelry box. I wasn’t ready. I’m not ready. My mom is still living, albeit bedridden with Alzheimer’s. Her jewelry box was a source of fascination for me growing up. But now the coveted gems leaving her home would be an admission of her inability to enjoy them. Taking them will leave me feeling guilty, greedy, even selfish if I can enjoy them instead of her.

Back at Dad’s house I walk into their bedroom and look at the jewelry box sitting on their small dresser. The ornately carved chest held Mother’s treasures as long as I can remember. I lift the lid and look inside at jewels that magnetized me as a child. I can see Mother getting dressed for the Marine Corps Ball and arranging her pearls before sliding on elbow-length satin gloves. Or on Sunday morning, selecting her smoky topaz set, or the “dinner ring” Daddy bought her in Hong Kong that I used to imagine was a ziggurat with its cone of multi-colored stones. I poke around and see the diamond earrings Dad says he brought home from a tour to bribe her to let him back into the house. There are other odds-and-ends she’s tucked into drawers at the bottom: a keepsake from a trip to Bellingrath Gardens, a little love note from my father, thank you notes my sister and I sent from college, even plastic jewelry we played with as children alongside her gold pieces.

There is too much in here for me to keep with a clean conscience. I realize I’ve waited too late to ask my mother which pieces should go to whom. I don’t want to divvy it up by myself. I call my sister. “Are there any pieces of Mom’s jewelry you want me to send you?” She can’t think of any. “Want me to pick something for you?”

“Sure. Nothing too girly.”

A couple of weeks after we get back to New Jersey I decide to tackle the chore I dread and clean out the jewelry box.

I start with the necklaces and untangle chains, make matching sets with the earrings and rings Dad purchased together, then pull out the bracelets. I decide I’ll send my sister the diamond earrings. They are classics, and not too effeminate in my mind. I find some simple rings and bracelets to put into her package, along with some fun costume jewelry.

Dad must have forgotten he already gave Mom a heart pendant decorated with diamonds, or she forgot she had one and chose a second. My niece and daughter should each get those. I put a signet ring with “S” on it into my niece’s package, since her monogram is SJS. Next, I remove the charm with my brother’s baby silhouette and attach it to another bracelet. That with all the green and blue gemstone earrings go into a package for my sister-in-law.

There’s still a lot left so I invite my daughter to come pick any pieces she wants. She’s giddy with excitement and leaves my house with enough rings and bracelets to fill a jewelry box of her own.

After the packages are mailed, I anxiously await news of their safe arrival, left with an embarrassingly large pile of jewelry myself. I flip the lid of the mahogany box and look at the neatly arranged and repaired pieces. Filled with nostalgia and more guilt than pleasure, I plunge my hand in and pull out a ring to wear out-to-lunch with a friend.

Later, the towering dinner ring grabs my jewelry-making friend’s eye across the table. “What an interesting piece!”

“It was my mother’s,” I explain. “I used to play with it at church and pretend it was a ziggurat.”

“Of course you did; what an funny kid you were.”

When the messages arrive that the packages are safely at their destinations, the joy they are received with gives me relief from my former guilt and worry. My sister-in-law is so touched to have my brother’s charm on her arm it brings tears to my eyes. Without a doubt, my mother would be pleased with the distribution of her treasures.

Your Turn: My Mamaw Gann used to put tape with someone’s name on the back of the item she wanted them to have after her death. (She also used to cross out the name and replace it with someone else’s when she got mad at them!) Do you care who your stuff goes to?