I checked. Something had been taken. All my jewelery.
A couple of Christmases ago, Skywalker bought me a lovely silver jewelery box. I kept it in a shelf with other 'looking pretty' stuff - hair clips and ribbons and costume jewelery. The jewelery box was there, but open, and empty. (The stuff I had lying around on my dresser was untouched. And it was Tiffany, too. Idiot thieves.)
None of it was very expensive. Although the pendant and matching ring my Grandma gave me for my 18th wouldn't have been exactly cheap, it wasn't that expensive and it was the most valuable of the lot. But I started making a list for the cops, and everything item on the list, instead of starting with 'gold' or 'sapphire' began with the occasion or person connected to it: "18th" "Confirmation" "Gma/Winky".
When my Grandmother died, she passed on a pearl necklace to my dad. He gave it a friend of the family (after whom I was named), and when she died, she gave it back to him. When I got it, there was a note, all yellowed and creased, saying she felt she'd only been holding it for him for me.
I don't wear it that much; it's pretty but fairly old-fashioned looking. But I wore it for my birthday this year. I'm wearing it in that photo, although you can't see it very well. (Yeah, turns out all the times I'm photographed wearing my jewelery, the photos are of me, not my neck or fingers or wrists. Shocking, I know.) When I got home that night, I took it off, carefully placed it in its box, and teared up as I read the note. If only I had been a bit sloppier, tossed it down, carelessly left it on the dresser, I would probably still have it.
I called my dad straight away. To tell him what had happened, so someone would give me a hug, even if it was from across the country. But the real reason was to say: I'm sorry, Dad and Winky and Grandma V. You all kept it for me and I didn't manage to keep it safe, but I tried.
And now some loser who didn't even know to wear gloves when breaking and entering has my memories, and is probably giving them to his crackwhore of a girlfriend as we speak. Happy Important Family Mementos Day, fucker.
Missy, I am so sorry for you.
ReplyDeleteFour years ago I bought my grandmother's house. I spend some time there, but don't live there full-time yet. It's a double, two residences side-by-side in the same building, and I own them both. I keep one side for storage and one side for living. The main idea was that we would keep this house in the family so it wouldn't become a crackhouse or tenement apartments or something like that.
Three weeks ago I went to the house to mow the lawn and trim the weeds. As I came around the back of the "storage" side, I noticed that a window had been smashed. I called the police when I noticed some other things amiss over there, too. Nothing had been taken - except all the copper pipes. About $60 (US) of recycling value, and now I have to pay a $500 insurance deductible to cover the repairs. Plus $900 for a monitored security system.
And one of my first thoughts was much like yours: I failed my grandmother. I had bought this house to keep it safe, to restore it to something like what it had been when I was a little kid playing there. And now it had been violated, entered, and cut up for parts.
I am sorry for your loss. Insurance doesn't cover sentimental value, which usually far exceeds material value. They stole the necklace, but they cannot steal your memories, or what it meant to you.
Do the police have any likely places where your jewelry might be pawned? It sounds horrible, but maybe you can locate it and buy it back - and maybe help the police nail the thieves in the process.