Heirlooms for No One
My aunt called me into her bedroom, alone. She opened the dark-wood dresser drawer with a hard yank. The horse hair she collected to make twine silently shook on top of the dresser. She handed me a small ceramic top hat painted with the American flag- very on brand for my mother’s side of the family. I opened the hat to see her wedding ring inside. The ring was bigger than I expected. I didn’t know my aunt could afford that. The gold was heavy but looked like Depression-era gold. She got married in the mid-90s. I specifically remember her arriving in a horse-drawn carriage, and I thought she looked like a cranky Disney princess. She was rarely happy. Her ring held an emerald surrounded by diamonds, creating a larger diamond shape. She pointed to the spot where a diamond fell out because the sharp edges caught on everything. My aunt was full of sharp edges herself. The lines on her face could have come from smoking or pursing her lips in disgust. She was sour and displeased with everything. The only time I remembered her smiling was when she was drunk, smoking a cigarette. The ring wasn’t my style, but I couldn’t deny its beauty. Another similar thing I felt about my aunt. She had no children, so she chose me to pass her things down to.
“I want you to pass this down to your children.” She said this with a lighthearted tone.
“Oh WOW! That’s so thoughtful.” I answered with the only appropriate things I could think of. My aunt never gave me much, and I wasn’t going to pass that up. I also loved emeralds. It was the birthstone of my one and only daughter, who died.
My aunt and my mother were somewhat close. My mom was the family glue. My mom also loved to talk, so I knew my aunt knew our story of infertility. When I delivered our daughter stillborn, I relied on my mother to pass on the news. And since the women in my family could fill the silence as if it were our job, I knew my mother disclosed the news. I know it’s my story, but it also feels like one my family members would recall. But then again, in my family, that could be asking too much.
My aunt married a weird guy. Even as a kid, I understood the stories he told weren’t true. “Once I caught a fish so big I needed a crane to pull it out of the water!” All I could think of was how did he have access to a crane? Years after they married, they divorced messily. And then, married again. “The ring has been through a lot,” which I knew was code for “Don’t sell it on eBay.”
After the diamond fell out, she never wore it. She did keep it in her top dresser drawer, next to old batteries and two gopher skulls she “acquired” and cleaned. And yes, I also inherited the gopher skulls. My aunt had her own kind of style. Animal skins and road kill bones were a large part of it. I might not purchase her art from a gallery, but I guarantee every one of us would stop and stare at the work. Her approach was novel and conjured up a strange yet curious response.
We never really got along, more like we acknowledged each other’s presence. My aunt didn’t like children, and for most of our relationship, I was a child. Once I became an adult, I’d join her on the porch and smoke cigarettes. She’d light her hand-rolled tobacco and place it inside a bone she carved into a cigarette holder. I never asked where she got the bone, but I had a guess. I smoked blue American Spirits, and we drank red wine. We never said more than a few words, but there was an understanding. She once told me I wasn’t fully part of the family until I got divorced. All of my aunts and uncles were divorced, and my mother was too. I told her I think I married right the first time, and she glared at me like she was a witch cutting my soul in half.
My happily married husband and I stopped trying to have kids. We started to love our life after infertility. I did have cousins who had children, and whose children had children. But my aunt was picky about who she tolerated. And she chose me. I was her handpicked treasure, yet knowing her taste, I wondered if that was a compliment.
She gave me more than a ring. Technically, I drove away with a full cargo trailer of mostly broken old things. The items were labeled, though: a post from a barbed wire fence from my grandparents' ranch, a crew neck sweater reading “ Over what hill? Where? When? I don’t remember any hill!”, and a licorice candy tin filled with, I would guess, teeth from road kill animals she found. I accepted it all. My mother and I sorted through it. We tossed a lot, but we loved some of it. A leather hand purse, rocks shaped like penises, and a slab of marble she carved for her dog’s tombstone were my favorites. I happily inherited my aunt’s items, knowing they might not live on past me. But just because I’m not having kids doesn’t mean I don't get to enjoy heirlooms.
My husband and I have questioned where our things go after we die. “Give it to your niece!” I’m pretty sure my 11-year-old niece isn’t interested in my aunt's first horse’s skull. She lives in a minimal home anyway. “Keep it for yourself!” I will keep some of it, but not the freezer-sized collection of leather scraps. “What if you do have children one day?” The inevitable question that still breaks my heart. Physically, I can’t be pregnant again, so that's out of the question. And unless we are handed children, it’s just not happening. And I’m pretty cool with that. I’ve reorganized my life around that very idea. “But what will your legacy be?”
I took the heirlooms from my aunt. She was still alive, but knew the end was close. Although I have heard grumpy older people often live the longest. But I permitted myself to get rid of anything I didn’t want and kept whatever felt good. I assumed I’d be a mother, and one who would pass along the family jewels- actual jewels. But since I’m not, I can play by my own rules. I am one of the first women in my family able to make this kind of decision. I’m not worrying about where all of my things will go and who will get them. I’ll be dead anyway! To be clear, if we die before my brother and sister-in-law, they will be in charge. But if we live a long life, we will not be passing things down. And that’s OK. Because let’s be real- we’ve all been to an estate sale, some even put on by the children of the deceased. Children don’t keep everything.
A couple of years ago, my husband built a maple wood table. It’s round and expands to seat ten. It’s my favorite piece he’s ever made. When he finished it, and I posted it online, someone asked, “Why would you put so much effort into something when you don’t have anyone to pass it down to?” Like, are we not allowed to have nice things because we don't have kids? Just to clarify, I get stupid comments like these every single day. “Who will take care of you when you’re old?” Probably a fancy nurse I am saving to pay for. “What is your purpose if you’re not raising a child?” It’s 2026. My purpose is drinking coffee on my patio while watching the birds sing. My purpose is to dress up with my girlfriends and drink from elegant glassware. My purpose is to live a life with intention, gratitude, and love. And yes, you can do all of that without kids. “What do you do with all of your free time?” Literally whatever I want.
There is tremendous freedom in life without children, yet it’s still complicated. It’s not traditional, so anyone aligned with traditional values often sees me as a threat. I’m actually OK with that because hello, that means women have made progress! We live unburdened by home with mouths to feed. I get to choose what matters in life, and today it’s a dog walk at noon while adding a new bird to my Merlin App Life List: Greater Yellowlegs. Yesterday, I fed the hummingbirds in my yard, helped my neighbor rake leaves, and worked on mastering the French knot on my embroidery project. Tomorrow, I will attend my dear friend’s local storytelling production and wear a fabulous outfit. The point is that it’s my choice.
And all that good stuff doesn’t erase the grief I hold alongside my joyous life. I am a human, which means I’m allowed, maybe even expected, to hold more than one emotion at once. I want to honor my weird aunt by wearing her ring. I emailed her a picture of me in her vintage clothes, decorating my home with her pens made from bird feet, and the feathers hanging from the rearview mirror, which might have come from the same bird the pens came from. I told her we weren’t having kids, and when she said I could pass down her things to my children, I didn’t correct her. She knew the truth. And she still gave me her things. If she didn’t want to believe that her lineage of items will end with me, that’s her problem to work through, not mine. She was aware that I’m a dead end in our family's genealogy.
The ring currently spends most of its time in my Sarah Jessica Parker jewelry box, which I got in the early 2000s. Next to my iPod Nano, an Oakland A’s hair ribbon, and an earring a friend got me in Africa. The ring is home. A place where no kids live. A place that revolves around our rescued pit bull. A place with a very nice table. My favorite place. And even if this wasn’t the life I expected, it's still full of so much magic and beautiful pieces I’ve inherited. Legacy used to mean what I would pass down to my children. Today, it means deciding what to do with the ring once I melt it down. It might not mean the same thing five years from now. But for today, I think of my kooky aunt and her curmudgeonly way of life. I might not inherit her moods, but I do love the quirky jewelry. I do plan on having an eccentric estate sale. One that people line up for early in the morning and wraps around the block. Would my aunt love that? Who knows? It’s my legacy.