Sunday Morning, January 1, 2012

Yep, I'm still awake! Gotta go to bed very soon or I will never get up later today!

I'm cleaning things out, shuffling things around, throwing things out (nothing anyone would want - just crap that should have been thrown out already). I have some things, however, that I really need to go ahead and give to family members. I've been saving something for my youngest daughter ever since my mother died, and I had planned to give it to her with her 2011 Christmas things - not as a gift, just that's the time I would be seeing her. But, I wasn't brave enough to give it to her - I'm no longer sure she would want anything that belonged to anyone in our family.

years ago I gave my oldest daughter the bracelet that my former mother-in-law gave me when I was 21, and I also gave her my diamond tennis bracelet. And when she married I gave her the small pearl and diamond pendant I wore when my ex and I married. I have no idea if she still has any of it.

I have no idea what happened to my mother's jewelry when she died. I was ill at the time, fighting a bone infection, was in the hospital when she died, released long enough for her funeral, and then went back. By the time I was allowed to go to my mother's house for one afternoon to see what I wanted, the place had been picked pretty clean by other family members. I never found my mother's two sets of wedding rings (both from Daddy), her high school ring which I had re-shanked for her, her opal ring which I had given her, the expensive watch I had purchased for her, nor any other of her nice things. The only piece I found was her "Mother" ring - the gold band with the birth stones of each of her three children. This I took and put away to give to my youngest daughter. My ex and I purchased it for my mother for Christmas of 1968. But now I'm not sure my daughter would even want it, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't. So I don't know what to do with it.

So what does one do with the personal effects when there are no children to give things to? I've avoided cleaning things out because I don't know WHAT to do with them. It just never occurred to me that they would not go to my son and daughters.