When my mother came to town to attend my wedding, she brought with her my dead aunt's gold watch and ring. Without a living daughter to inherit her heirloom pieces, I decided that I should. I put them on and thought that they really mean nothing to me. I don't remember my aunt ever wearing those old pieces of jewelry and therefore have no recollection of her having any sort of feeling for them. There is a lot about my aunt that I will forever cherish. Her jewelry is not one of the memorable aspects of her. Even though I cannot throw her jewelry away, I cannot wear them either.
What means a lot to me is the fact that my aunt loved books. She was a librarian and worked with a bunch of nuns. She preferred the marine world of whales and sea creatures to the fetid politics of the Catholic Church. If she could have had it her way, she would have found total refuge in the a little marine biology library somewhere faraway from the waters of Rio.
