When my mother died, I got something that appeared so simple and regular, yet it meant more to me than I could have ever imagined. It was a necklace. If you looked at it with ordinary eyes, it was just a necklace. A chain that my brother gave her about twenty years ago, which she never took off while she was alive.
It was pretty special to her. It got too much for me.
The Day I Put It On
I still remember the day I chose to wear it. That would be a way to show her respect. A way to feel connected to her, to carry a bit of her with me, to keep her close to my heart. When you’re sad, you look for things to hold on to, like little mementos that remind you of the person you’ve lost.
But something changed almost immediately as I put it around my neck. The air felt thicker. My mind got more and more confused. A kind of darkness came over me. It wasn’t the usual melancholy of losing someone; it was something sharper and more suffocating. In less than an hour, I felt like I was drowning in a maelstrom that wasn’t even mine.
I couldn’t think straight by the second day. Negativity clung to me like a second skin. The worst part was that a sense of hopelessness, which I couldn’t articulate, started to creep in. It seemed impossible to keep going or even just be. It was scary.
That’s when I understood it wasn’t just a necklace. This was different.
Generational Pain in Disguise
I don’t think my mom ever talked about the burden she carried. She knew how to hide things, locking them deep inside herself where no one could see them. But the necklace took in some of that energy throughout the years. All the sadness she never let go of, all the fights she waged in her head, all the fears and disappointments she never said out loud, were woven into the metal and pressed against her skin every day.
I wasn’t just wearing jewelry when I put it on. I was in pain for her.
It made me think about how much we get from the individuals who came before us without even realizing it. Not simply their eye color, laugh, or way of walking, but also their wounds. The things they never got over and the fights they never identified. Sometimes those burdens don’t go away; they get passed along, like unwanted heirlooms, without anybody knowing.
Taking It Off
I made it through two days. After hours of fighting ideas that weren’t mine on the second night, I took off the necklace and put it on the dresser. It felt like the fog cleared right away. Not entirely, of course, there was still grief, but the heaviness, the gloom, and the dreadful pull toward despair began to lift.
I never put it on again. Finally, I told my husband to bury it somewhere I would never find it. Some items shouldn’t be carried.
At first, I felt bad. How could I say no to something that meant so much to her? How could I bury something she loved every day? But as time went on, I realized that this wasn’t about saying no to her. It was about not carrying things that weren’t mine.
The Symbol Beneath the Metal
That jewelry became more than just anything I owned. It became a sign of how suffering spreads through families. We receive many things from our parents without even realizing it, such as habits, phobias, and ways of being quiet. My mom never wanted to talk to me about God. I never understood why she got angry when I talked about spirituality. I do now. Even during those two days, wearing the necklace showed me the energy she had lived with for years. It made sense why she became angry when I talked about faith and why she didn’t want to hear about healing.
The necklace was her silent fight. She wasn’t giving me a present when she gave it to me; she was giving me a narrative. A story of suffering that never goes away.
Breaking the Chain
What I’ve learned is that generational pain is a chain, and someone needs to determine when to break it. Putting on that necklace, even for a short time, made me feel what it’s like to carry something that isn’t yours. It also made it clear to me that I didn’t want to do it anymore.
We can pay tribute to those who came before us without imitating their actions. We can love them without hurting them. Sometimes the most holy thing to do is not to keep doing what hurts them, but to choose a better path for ourselves and those who come after us.
That’s what I did when I buried the jewelry. I buried the grief with it. I buried the quiet. I buried the legacy of carrying weight without saying what it was. And by doing that, I made room for something else: light, healing, and freedom.
To Anyone Holding What Isn’t Yours
If your family has ever given you something heavy, like expectations, silence, trauma, or just the unseen weight of unresolved pain, I want you to know that you don’t have to keep carrying it. You don’t have to put on the necklace.
You don’t have to love them if you take it off. You aren’t leaving your family behind. It signifies you won’t let yourself go. It indicates you want to live free, break the cycle, and bury the past where it belongs.
Closing Thoughts
I couldn’t wear my mom’s necklace. It wasn’t just a piece of jewelry; it was a symbol of years of pain to come. She had kept it for years without saying a word, and perhaps she felt it made her stronger. But just because you can carry something for an extended period doesn’t mean you’re strong. Sometimes, real strength is knowing when to let go.
That necklace showed me that pain doesn’t go away when someone dies. It can hang about, looking for a new body to hold it. But it also showed me that we have a choice. We can keep going in circles, or we can put an end to it.
I decided to bury it. Not because I wanted to forget about her, but because I wanted to pay her respect by living differently. By choosing brightness over stillness. By choosing freedom while she believed she was stuck.
The necklace I couldn’t wear became the story I had to tell: the story of how I chose not to pass on my sadness and instead left behind a legacy of healing.