Ready or Not: The Complicated Truth About Mum’s Jewellery

The truth about grief, guilt, and knowing when it's time to remodel your mum’s jewellery

There’s something uniquely powerful about a mother’s jewellery.

Whether the relationship was close, complicated, or somewhere in between, her jewellery often holds more than just sentimental value, it holds memory, identity, and emotion that can be hard to name.

For many women, deciding what to do with their mum’s jewellery after she’s gone is one of the most emotional choices they’ll ever face.

Some are ready to redesign it straight away, finding comfort in the transformation.
Others hesitate, unsure whether they’re honouring or erasing what came before.
And for some - like me - the jewellery stays tucked away for years, waiting for a day that hasn’t yet arrived.

This blog is for all of those women.
The ones who are grieving. The ones who are angry. The ones who feel guilty for not doing something with it, and the ones who aren’t ready to let go.

Because the truth is, remodelling isn’t just about jewellery.
It’s about relationships. It’s about grief. And it’s deeply personal.

Every Piece of Jewellery Holds a Story — Even When We Don’t Think It Does

A woman sat with me for over two hours recently.
Her mum had passed away just a few months earlier and she spoke of her mum, not with huge warmth, but with a definite sense of bitterness and tension.
Years of resentment, emotional distance, unresolved pain came spilling out in what felt more like a therapy session than a design consultation.

We laughed together. We shared dementia stories and we felt each other’s unique pain.

What I took from our conversation as she was very clear: Mum’s jewellery wasn’t emotionally important.

But a week later, when I showed her her designs, her feedback included, “You haven’t included my mum’s diamonds and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

In that moment, I knew that I had mis-read the situation. The jewellery mattered emotionally - far more than this lovely lady even understood herself.

Grief Doesn’t Look the Same for Everyone

Every lady I work with who has inherited jewellery from her mum has a complicated relationship with that jewellery. There is no right, or wrong. No guidebook for getting grief right. No perfect timeline.

Some women just know immediately what is going to be best.
One lovely lady called just days after her mum passed. The emotion was still raw, she was in tears as we spoke. The wedding ring she wanted to include in her design was still on her mother’s finger in the chapel of rest as I gently suggested it might be a good idea to wait a while.

But no. For her, remodelling was a perfect way to cope.
It helped her process the pain by creating something tangible, something she could wear and feel close to.

Another woman I met confessed she had waited eleven years….

For more than a decade, she had been carrying her mum’s engagement ring in her purse every single day. Then she found Legacy Jewellery on Facebook and something shifted.

She was ready. Not just to redesign the piece, but to reclaim the love, the loss, and the complexity it represented.
She was tearful when she saw the final design. Thrilled, emotional, and relieved.
It had taken time. But it was worth the wait.

My Own Story: What If You Haven’t Forgiven Her?

I have spoken about my wonderful mum many times.

I have spoken about my wonderful mum many times.

She had early onset vascular dementia.
The kind that slowly erases someone you love while you’re still holding their hand.
It took a toll on our whole family. And truthfully, I’m not sure I’ve forgiven her.
Not yet. Maybe not ever.

There’s grief. But there’s also exhaustion.
There’s love, tangled with anger and guilt. Anger at how I behaved at times. Anger at her for succumbing to such a cruel and devastating disease. Anger a the universe for taking her away when I still need her. Guilt for how I spoke to her in those times of crises. Guilt for feeling sad all the time.

So her jewellery stays untouched.
Not because it’s not important.
But because I’m still working through what it means.

And I know I’m not the only one.

There’s No Right Way to Grieve — Only Your Way

A mum-daughter relationship is rarely simple.
If you’re lucky, it’s the deepest love you’ll ever know. And if you’re not, it can still shape your life in ways you never fully understand. So when you lose her, it hits hard. Even if you thought it wouldn’t.

Remodelling her jewellery stirs all of that. It’s not just a design choice. It’s a reckoning.
And for that reason, it’s okay and probably wise, to wait.

You’ll Know When You’re Ready

It might take weeks.
It might take years.
It might happen quietly one morning, when you find yourself reaching for her ring again - not with fear, but with love.

That’s when it begins.
Not the grief. But the healing.

And that’s when the piece becomes more than metal or memory.
It becomes a part of you.

Final Thought: Let the Jewellery Wait

If you're not ready, don't force it.
There’s no deadline. No rulebook.
Only your instinct, and your heart.

When the time comes, we’ll be here to listen, guide, and help you create something beautiful from all that complexity.

Until then, just know this:
You're not alone.
And you don't have to rush the love, or the loss.