It was in the early 1950s when Sonny and Julia met. Sonny was a lineman for the local electric utility. On their first date, Sonny wore a shirt with French cuffs, and Julia took note of it; she liked a sharp-dressed man. On some gift-giving occasion along the way in their courtship, Julia bought a matching tie bar and cuff links for Sonny. They were gold, each with a couple pieces of thick-gauge gold wire worked into a loose square knot. Simple. Elegant. Classy. After they were married, Julia found out that Sonny had only ever had the one shirt with French cuffs, and as an electrical lineman, was not much of one for dressing up, nor did he have much call for it. Still, he had that jewelry and kept it safe throughout his life.

Sonny and Julia were together for around forty years, I cannot tell the exact dates or length. They had two daughters, the younger of whom eventually became my wife.

My wife is a very lovely lady and strongly emotional. There are many things that it is hard for her to talk about, and one of those things is the loss of her father. I believe it was sometime in the very late 1980s or early 1990s, perhaps just before we started dating. Sonny went into a hospital for some tests, and something went wrong, and he died very quickly and unexpectedly. Especially early in our courting and marriage, the exact dates of her parents’ lives didn’t matter that much.

My wife’s elder sister married a man of whom Julia never really approved. He’s not a bad guy, but never had a stable job or income. Since I’ve known him, he has been a woodworker making musical instruments, a music teacher, and performed in various bands. His wife, my sister-in-law, seems to have been the primary breadwinner for their family, eventually winding up an engineer at a television station. Needless to say, for a woman who was born in the 1920s, as Julia was, this was somewhat scandalous.

When her younger daughter brought a young man to visit, and that young man had a stable job as a systems engineer and wore suits and ties every day, including dress shirts with French cuffs, Julia was a bit happier about her younger daughter’s taste in men. Sometime after we married, we went to visit Julia. She went into the other room and brought out a small box that was about four inches wide, an inch across and half an inch deep. The box top was red and the bottom white. She opened it up to reveal the tie bar and cuff link set, and she told me of its history. She gave me that jewelry set as she had given it to Sonny more than forty years before.

I considered this gift a great honor and have worn the jewelry proudly many times. The little box sits in a place of honor within my jewelry chest.

I’m not an old man, but older than many who have died. A few days ago an actor had a massive stroke and died; he was younger than I. I could name many, many other people who died of heart attacks, strokes, and other diseases more associated with old age who were younger than I am. One of my grandmothers did not make it to my age. Both of grandfathers only made it until they were only five years older than I am now. On the other hand, my other grandmother lived to nearly eighty, my father is still alive at eighty-four, and my mother will be eighty this year. I am not exactly staring mortality in the face, but I can hear Death knocking on doors down the hall from me. Thus I think of my legacy, and what I should do with my possessions if anything happens.

When we married, my wife was nearing forty. She had no interest in having children. Given some inherited health conditions in both families, it is probably best that we did not. My sister-in-law and her husband had two daughters as Sonny and Julia did, no sons. Of those daughters, the elder is working on a Ph.D., so has not married yet, but even if she does, she is much more likely to marry a woman than a man. With modern technologies, it is not impossible that she could have children anyway, but at the moment that branch of the family line does not seem likely to connect to anyone who wears tie bars and cuff links. The younger daughter has some of those inherited health conditions I mentioned. She is unlikely to ever be out on her own, and likewise very unlikely to ever marry and have children. It seems likely that Sonny and Julia’s line will die off with this next generation.

What shall I do with this heirloom jewelry that may not be extremely valuable, but was in this family for well over sixty years? If I die, should it go to one of my wife’s nieces anyway? What happens if my wife dies first and I lose touch with her nieces? (This is a high probability. I am on the autism spectrum and do not maintain relationships well.) Should I go ahead and pass them on immediately if my wife dies? If so, which niece? And will they value them as I do? On the other hand, who would possibly value the set more than the granddaughters of Sonny and Julia? Perhaps it is a concern that will not need to be addressed for thirty years or more, but at the moment they are destined for Sonny and Julia’s elder granddaughter, whether she will ever have any use for them or not. Far better that she have them and carry the legacy forward than that they wind up in a thrift shop somewhere.

They were an unexpected gift, carrying a legacy of more than forty years grown now to over sixty years, nearer seventy. The legacy is a burden to find a way to carry that legacy even further forward.