You see them on antiques roadshow all the time. Pretty boxes with scratches around the keyhole, or chips in the veneer. "If you look, you can see some damage right here. It looks like someone lost the key and tried to open the box at some point. It will affect the price a bit, but you're still looking at ......" And the person with the box nods their head; yes yes. I understand. Antiques come with scratches most of the time.
This box isn't all that special. A plan cedar box with a simple key that I put, somewhere. I got the box when I graduated from high school. The local furniture company had advertised "Graduates! Get your cedar box, a gift from us to you on this important occasion."
I had to stop by. The plain cedar box has carried childhood memories and some pretty tacky jewelry since. One piece in particular, willed to me by my father's mother, a single pearl in a sterling silver setting. The back was adjustable. My cousin had received the flashier pieces. I was slightly disappointed, but what would I have done with some of the costume jewelry my grandmother had owned? I was more hurt that I couldn't take her furniture, which I knew she wanted me to have. But I was broke and recently separated from my first husband. I had no place to keep the heirlooms.
So I kept this simple ring in its red velvet box (not the original box, obviously) in the plain cedar box. Afraid to wear it because I am a walking stress test for clothes and accessories.
While touring Wistariahurst on Sunday the curator of the museum starts talking about Belle Skinner, who appears to have been the aristocrat of the family. My brother owns some film footage of Belle dining with dignitaries in France. Belle's portrait hung next to her sister Katherine; each canvas with a frame that extends nearly floor to ceiling in the great hall that was added on to the main Wistariahurst house. (The ceilings have to be 20 ft.) So there is stands, in her glory and looking down at who ever is occupying the great hall, when I hear the curator mention Belle's pearl ring. How happy she would be to find it and blah blah blah. My attention is pulled away from the decorative ceiling just long enough to say. "I have that ring."
The curator hadn't given any kind of description; all she had said was pearl ring. But what else could it be? The ring was really unlike anything my grandmother would have worn, too simple for the artists hands she owned.
My mom said "Gram always told me she had Belle's ring; she said she would give it to me someday. I always wondered if she really did."
The curator was speechless. I agreed to send photos. I'm waiting without much anticipation to see if the ring has the history I think it might.
My grandmother was full of stories. And she had a certain arrogance that some found grating, others found interesting. My brother has done some research and found that some of her stories were pretty tall, just like Belle's portrait.
But so far, my grandmother has always done right by me. She has tucked important bits into everything of hers that I managed to keep around.
Once I wrote to her that I imagined she would get up at night, when the neighbors in the aging complex wouldn't see, and stand on her porch in the moonlight. And with her nightgown glowing against the evening I pictured her dancing. The truly free spirit that she wanted to be finally allowed to come out in honest expression.
There are problems in my past and hers; I can't know why she made some of the decisions she did because they ultimately affected my life in drastic ways. But even after her death she continues to remind me that history and family go beyond the bad decisions. There are reasons; and life continued whether it should have or not.
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