A beautiful aquamarine ring and earring set.
I was graduating from school, and my parents threw a small party for relatives and close friends. After all the gifts had been opened and cake had been eaten, an old family friend, a frail old spinster whom I loved dearly, pulled me to the side.

"I have something for you", she said, and handed me an ancient Kodak film container, so old that it was made of melamine and screwed together. I opened it up, and nestled in a small square of yellow flannel was a beautiful pair of earrings and a matching ring. "I want you to have this", she continued. "When I was your age, I had a sweetheart. He was very special to me, and once, on a trip to Brazil, he brought these home to me." Knowing, as I did, that she'd never married, I waited for her to finish. "He went overseas during World War Two, and...he never came back. I had another friend who had thought that she had lost her sweetheart, so she married another, and after the war, it turned out that her first love had been in a POW camp. I will never forget the look of disappointment on his face when he found out, so I waited, because I wouldn't have been able to bear if my sweetheart had come home to find out I was with another man. He never did come home. But I want you to have these, I never could wear them, but I think they will look lovely on you."

And that is my most treasured possession, those earrings, that ring, and that story. I will wear this jewelry on my wedding day. To this day, I can't believe that I was given something so amazingly precious, and I will never forget that someone loved me enough to share that with me.
(herbivorous, Fri 9 May 2008, 6:40, Reply)