The great jewelry draft
Part NFL draft and part Antiques Roadshow, going through your dying mom's jewelry is fully heartbreaking.
We gather around the table in my parents’ sun-filled kitchen, like executives at a board meeting. Except Mom’s not wearing pants.
She sits in a wheelchair in her white, cotton underwear. Ratty maroon towel spread across her lap. She doesn’t bother with pants anymore. It’s too hard for us to slide them on and off when she has to go to the bathroom. So now she sits with her hips and ass cheeks directly atop the black leather wheelchair seat.
Mom, Becca and I sit cradling our mugs of coffee. We have a strict agenda. The purpose of this meeting is to review all of Mom’s jewelry and divide it between her two daughters: Becca and me. Mom wants to make sure her family heirlooms are getting into “the right hands” before she dies. She’s eager to check this lingering project off her to-do list. Not literally; she can no longer write with a pen.
Becca and I are not excited. We think this is a dark, depraved exercise. Who wants to sit around a table and divide up their mom’s most sentimental items, before she’s even dead? But we humor her. There’s urgency. “I don’t want Dad’s new wife to wear any of my mother’s jewelry after I’m gone,” she says.
She’s joking. But not.
Mom is declining quickly. We received her ALS diagnosis in December. It is now April. When we learned it was ALS, we were shocked. She’d been collecting a smattering of bizarre symptoms over the previous two years: first there was drop foot, followed by some issues going to the bathroom. Then came the falling. There were so many falls. One day she was a healthy, thriving 70-year-old taking watercolor classes and weekend walks to the wine bar, and the next she was a dying woman who couldn’t shower or swallow.
On this April morning, Dad brings in bags and bags of jewelry. There are roughly 100 different pieces. Some are gold, safely cinched in suede bags after traveling across generations and oceans. Some are tangled pieces of costume jewelry arguing at the bottom of a Lord & Taylor bag.
From diamond engagement rings to plastic, Judaica Shop clip-on earrings, we sift through it all—giving each item the same amount of attention and reverence, no matter its original purchase price. Part NFL draft, part Antiques Roadshow, Becca and I laugh nervously as Mom recites the history of each item.
We fall into a pattern: Mom tells the origin story. Becca and I hold the piece in our hands. Try it on. Decide who will adopt it.
“This garnet necklace—my mother’s mother wore it a lot. Her name was Gertrude. We called her Gertie. Fortunately I didn’t have to name either one of you Gertie.” We laugh. “She wore this for years. After she died, they were appraised. They’re worth nothing, but sentimentally, they’re worth something.”
I quickly grab my laptop and start capturing every detail. Becca laughs. “Are you really making a spreadsheet right now?”
As the Type A oldest daughter with a perfectionism problem, I know that’s a fair judgment. It’s objectively over-the-top to catalog each item of (mostly worthless) jewelry like I’m working at the Smithsonian. But I can't help it. I don’t trust my memory. I’ll forget these precious details and then Mom’ll be gone and they’ll be lost forever.
Plus, I know Becca will thank me when she forgets which was Grandma’s wedding ring and which was the ring Mom bought herself on vacation in Hong Kong as her first marriage fell apart.
Next up: two matching gold tennis bracelets. “In 1987, Grandma was hit—almost head-on—by a truck,” Mom recalls. “She was in the ICU for weeks and they didn’t know if she was going to make it. You girls were very little. When she got out of the hospital, she worried she might not be around long enough to make it to your bat mitzvahs, so she bought these two tennis bracelets - one for each of you. I guess I forgot to give them to you.”
I frantically type as we continue to review the inventory. The rings fit my fingers better, so I usually get first dibs at those. Which means Becca gets first crack at the necklaces. The pins and brooches are wild cards. We say, “Oh, that turquoise looks great with your skin tone,” and “These earrings are way too heavy!” and “I remember this necklace; you used to wear it to Temple!”
We go through, piece by piece. It takes a long time. She gets tired. We take breaks.
Once a dynamic art teacher and organized PTA president committed to finding the perfect eye cream, we watch her evaporate into a small, quiet raisin. She weighs 90 pounds and ingests more calories from her medications than her food. Half a cup of coffee in the morning. One runny egg. A few pathetic bites of string cheese for lunch. A seltzer in the afternoon. She rests her eyes while we eat.
The indignity of ALS is unmatched. Losing control of each bodily function one at a time while your mind stays alert is the definition of cruel and unusual. She says when she’s busy and not thinking about it, she’s ok. But when she remembers what’s happening, she gets sad, scared, and anxious. She takes a Xanax before bed. Then an Ambien at 1am. Then Dad helps her pee, she meditates and falls back to sleep. A few weeks later, she’ll move into a hospice bed in the living room. Diapers replacing the toilet. Morphine replacing the Xanax.
I don’t break down in front of her, just privately in their guest room. And then publicly on my flight back home to Minnesota. Sometimes I force myself not to talk to her for a few days at a time, as though I’m practicing grief. Trying it on like a new blazer. “What if this was my life? What if I couldn’t call her?” But then she texts me and asks how I am, both breaking the illusion that she’s already dead and also breaking my heart because one day she will be. She won’t text. Won’t view my stories on Instagram. Won’t tell me how beautiful my daughters are. And then what?
Death is too permanent for my liking. But I know this is not unique to me. It’s funny when people say, “I hate hospitals!” or “I hate goodbyes!” like those are unique personality traits. We all hate hospitals. We all hate goodbyes. Have you ever seen a bunch of teenagers on the last day of summer camp? Tragic. And the idea of saying goodbye to the person who understands you, sees you, and loves you more than anyone else? Unfathomable. Becca and I cling to her jewelry, because, to us, they ARE her.
Mom dies in June 2021, just two months after the Great Jewelry Draft. As a family of four, losing her feels like someone violently kicked out a leg from a table. Sure, a table can stand on three legs, but it isn’t natural. It requires a lot of work and a severe redistribution of labor. Becca, Dad and I have had to learn how to function as a new kind of family.
Mom’s absence has been so loud. So noticeable. A canyon. I think about never getting another gift from her. Never seeing a new piece of her artwork. Never getting another random “Thinking of you” greeting card from Trader Joe’s with a crisp $20 bill tucked inside. Becca and I cling to what we do have: souvenirs of her story. We wear Mom’s jewelry every day. Becca wears one of her monogrammed silver necklaces and I wear one of her diamond rings. It’s a bit over-the-top for running to the grocery store and changing diapers but I love knowing it still has skin cells from Mom colliding with mine. I love feeling like she’s still with me, even though she is noticeably missing. I love telling people, “It was my mother’s,” when they compliment me on it, and I love using that as a diving board into telling them all about my mom.
The other pieces sit patiently in a glass jewelry box, nestled in my walk-in closet—curated and thoughtfully displayed like the Crown Jewels. My 5-year-old daughter oohs and ahhs over them. To her, they are the Crown Jewels. Her favorite is Mom’s old charm bracelet, complete with gold figurines of the Arc de Triomphe, a Dutch clog, a heart, and a graduation cap.
One day, she and her little sister will debate and discuss who will receive each piece. One day, it will all be theirs—and they’ll be glad they have my spreadsheet.
this is beautiful, lyse. so is your mom, always. she had the best laugh and her smile was infectious. and clearly amazing taste in jewelry! love you ❤️