Oh, I'm sure you won't have to worry about THAT.

You train them well, Jilli-Wan.

It's kind of unbalanced in our house. I have a couple of mirrors, a washstand, a nightstand, a small library table and a console table, batter bowls, Depression Glass serving pieces, a salt piggin, a brass and milk glass nightlight, table lamps, stuff from my grandmother, and great-aunt, my aunt, and my mom. I have my mom's diamonds--I don't wear diamonds--and a bar pin and lavaliere from my grandmother, and a heart locket from H's mom and his dad's onyx and gold signet ring. H doesn't wear jewelry, and I don't wear gold. The XDiL had the locket, but it's a family piece, it stays in the family, even if she doesn't.

We have just a few things from H's family--a thick white china mixing bowl with a blue band, and a set of stainless flatware monogrammed "USNavy". They, and the twin bowl his mom kept and still uses, were given to them in Immigration, when they were waiting for transport to the home of their sponsors. Treasures. We use them all, frequently.

There's more stuff: a gorgeous bonnet-top chifforobe with a stack of drawers and mirrored doors, a pressback Victorian rocking chair, a beautiful mahogany drum table, grandfather clock, and small occasional tables, that I wish we could have brought. But we don't have room, so those are the things I left back in the NC house with StY. Miss them, though. Him too.

I had the aunt's daughters over before we left to ask them to go through the photos and take what they wanted, and asked if there were any small pieces of Mom's they wanted. They each got some things, though not the pitcher and basin--Mom had already given them the steeple clock and the portrait H and I had done of our grandmother, from an old photograph.

And I left them with the 24x20 inch mahogany frame with bubble glass containing the badly foxed picture of our grandmother. What they do with it is up to them.

And still? Too much stuff right now.

a bar pin

I read this so quickly it made me wonder, "What's a BRA pin?"

I don't have any family heirlooms (unless you count a framed Monet print that belonged to my paternal grandmother that I like just because it was hers). There were a few things of my grandfather's that I would have liked, but my aunt has them, and I guess they'll stay in her family.

Does your grandmother have any pull with them - could you tell her how they're behaving?

Oh, don't get me started. My grandmother is under this immature idiot's thumb. She spent my wedding telling my mother it was her fault that he hadn't come. She's been calling us every day to whine that we have to 'fix things'. She thinks we are in the wrong, because he's her golden boy (whereas my mother, who does everything for her, can't ever do anything right). I'm giving up with the situation. The only reason we're in contact with him is because it made my grandmother happy, but she has been just as immature as him over the situation, and I'm done with it and him. I saw him treat my mother like this growing up, and he is in no way going to do the same thing to me. < /rant > OK, breathing again now!

She's been calling us every day to whine that we have to 'fix things'.

Get re-married? Take out a billboard apologizing abjectly for ruining *his* big day? Maybe offer to cut off a finger in penance?

I mean, seriously, how does one "fix" an event that someone decided to not attend? It's not about "fixing," it's about making you grovel because you didn't make your day all about someone else.

(Which I know you know; it's just so crazy-making. People often need a clean reinstall.)

Unrelatedly, I have to shower because I was dumb enough to actually spritz a perfume sample ON me first, instead of on a paper strip, and I smell like rotting seaweed. (Which is, actually, a smell I like [no, for real], when it's actual seaweed lying on the sand, NOT when it's ME smelling like rotting vegetation.)

Sometimes the amount of family stuff there is feels like an avalanche poised to fall on me head. My mother was known as a Keeper, so she ended up with some pretty remote family stuff, like my great-aunt's husband's mother's bed. My father was the only child on his mother's side, so that river of stuff everyone has, like china and silver, flowed down to us. His only cousin got most of the stuff from Dad's father's parents, since she was the one in town, although she still felt ill-used about the furniture we got. As far as I know, only my mother really cares; she holds grudges close.

The hard part is that sense of obligation that these things should go to someone who would remember who they belonged to and what they meant.

No seaweedy Steph.

Seska, I'd be tempted to just publish a missive to your offending relative consisting of an engraved hand with thumb and three fingers tucked. I have no patience with people of that mind, and tend to let them babble and stew in their own bile. Being careful not to get any on me, of course. I hope it settles down soon and you can get past it.

Teppy, it's a lovely thing. 10kt, so no real monetary value. But it's charmingly engraved, and the portrait we had done shows her wearing it on the satin neckpiece tied around her throat. I have a copy of the photo. Plans have always been to frame the portrait in a shadowbox with the bar pin displayed with the picture. May do it still.

Yeah, definitely breathe! Sounds like you are making the right call. I`m totally texting one of my students right now saying you can`t control other people`s behaviour, only your reaction to it. Seems like it`s time for you to draw the line.
 
Family pieces: I claimed my grandmother`s Japanese embroidery by numbers of this giant tiger because it wasn`t really my mom`s taste. And I have this hundred year old go table made from a single (huge) piece of wood. It used to belong to my mom`s cousin`s family before they were interned, but my mom got it because her family moved into their house to keep them from losing it. She just returned a teak and marble washstand that she had similarly when they were living in Hawaii last. Her cousin`s son says he remembered it from his childhood. Most families who were interned weren`t so lucky.

Oh, I'm sure you won't have to worry about THAT.

Considering her plan for her Halloween costumes for the rest of her life is: kitty, zombie, zombie kitty, vampire with Auntie Jilli, then no, I probably don't need to worry.

You train them well, Jilli-Wan.

That sounds so weird.

Thanks, Beverly. I'm past it, though. Well, mostly. I'm a bit of a sensitive soul. I'll be fine! Family stuff is irritating as all hell.

Get re-married? Take out a billboard apologizing abjectly for ruining *his* big day? Maybe offer to cut off a finger in penance?

I should totally do the billboard thing. Preferably one right outside my grandmother's house. I'm more than a bit irritated that neither he nor my grandmother has noticed that this was the one day of my life and Sharon's that was about us, and NOT about him. On the plus side, my adorable mother let me RAAAAR at her about it until I felt better. I am really exceptionally lucky at having only the one or two craxy relatives. Even Sharon's family, with whom things have been very difficult at times, were just *wonderful* during the wedding. I thought I was going to cry when her mother and my mother read the ketubah in Hebrew and English respectively. I have the best photo of the two of them hugging!