I have the downer version of this story. Skip it if you’d rather just hear happy-memory type inheritance stories.
My then-fiance (pre-ring) came home one night and said that we didn’t have to go ring shopping; he’d just been informed by his mother that his paternal grandmother (who’d died years prior, and who I never met) had indicated that her engagement ring should go to his eventual fiancee. So, I get a ring. A platinum ring with a lot of detail work on it, and a pretty damned big diamond. Not to sound ungrateful, but it’s a far cry from the small, solitaire diamond setting I’d envisioned. It also attracts a lot of attention, not always desirable - especially when you work in a bad area of town. Anyway, the design did grow on me.
The trouble starts almost immediately. Sisters-in-law go “WTF?!” when informed that their brother’s fiancee is getting their grandmother’s ring. My father-in-law tries to force us into having a pre-nup which states that my now-husband gets the ring back, no matter what, should the marriage end. Hubby refuses, and that’s that.
Or so I thought. Let’s move several years into the future now.
A couple years ago at Thanksgiving, at my inlaws’ house, I’m standing just outside a doorway to the dining room, and hear my father-in-law talking to one of his daughters. I didn’t hear the whole conversation, but I heard enough, and it involved him saying he was going to get the ring back if we broke up/I left Hubby/Hubby died/whatever “even if I have to rip it off her fucking finger.” Well, it was pretty much all I could bear to not rip it off my own finger, throw it on the table, and walk out. But hey, I’m polite. I didn’t tell my husband until much later, lest we definitely have a scene, but he and I have decided that at the next ill word about it from his father, the ring is getting thrown down.
I have my grandmother’s and my mother’s engagement rings but can’t wear either of them. They’re both way too small to fit over my arthritic knuckles (odd, since Mum and Nana both had arthritis as well) and the gold bands have worn so thin, I doubt they could be enlarged. It’s a pity because, since my marriage is kind of falling apart, I don’t wear my own engagement/wedding/eternity rings and I’d like to be able to wear the heirlooms.
We were cleaning out Grandma’s apartment when she moved to the nursing home and find a silver ring with two peridots and a rose topaz type stone. It had her initials engraved in it so we realized it must have been a Grandma’s ring (she and my brother are August and I am October). I kept that, but I’m think her wedding ring and engagement ring went with the auctioneer guy who took most of the other jewelry. When I was sixteen, after my Great-Grandma’s funeral, Grandma presented me with an opal ring G-G had said I could have “if I was a good girl”.
<looks around nervously> I’m not sure this is the same, but my grandfather somehow got a beautiful nickel plated Colt .22 revolver when I was a wee tot. Said it was to be my wedding present, as he apparently knew he wouldn’t be around when I finally settled down. I don’t think any of my cousins shot it, or maybe even knew it existed. I now treasure it, hoping that someday (20+ years, please son) I can take my grandson out and teach him to shoot with his wedding present.
My wife wears her grandmother’s engagement ring as well. It’s worn on her right middle finger, and is nearly as important to her as our wedding set…cherish it!
