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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Everything depends on the will. I was the executor of my parents' estates. When mom passed, technically her will left everything to me to divvy out as I saw fit.

What some people think the "family" agrees to do doesn't actually matter in many cases. It is up to the executor to make these kinds of decisions. [/quote]

OP here - first, there was no will - everything went to her husband/my grandfather.

I told my mom last week at dinner.  She was annoyed/disappointed.  She said one of her brothers had already mentioned that there was something they needed to talk about whenever she was up for it.

So, she ended up talking to my aunt (I assumed that was how it would play out no matter who told my mom because there are 3 sisters and the third is developmentally disabled).  Aunt continued to be defensive and vague about the entire issue and never really fessed up to the whole thing but admitted that (1) she acquired the ring around the time of the funeral and (b) neither parent gave the ring to her.  She also claims that the ring has been in her safe and she didn't think much about it until her daughter got engaged.  My mother suspects the ring was removed when the casket was closed and handed over to my aunt (that is the only thing that makes sense at this point).

My mother told her that she was very, very disappointed in how aunt chose to handle the situation.  That she still feels there is more to the story about how my aunt acquired the ring that perhaps my aunt herself is not ready to resolve[b] (aunt was the youngest and had a very, very hard time when their mother died - she has always acted a bit more entitled about the death, like it was more acute and painfuyl for her than anyone else).  [/b]My mom  added that, even if my aunt hadn't thought much about the ring since she acquired it, she should have come to everyone and explained the situtation before she gave her daughter the ring and removed the diamonds.

Anyway, her daughter is, as predicted, keeping the diamonds.  My mother asked for the gold setting to handed over to my mother and that she and her brothers would decide what to do with it.  I suspect there will be hard feelings/distrust towards aunt for a long time and I do not doubt that they will bubble over at some point in the future (the brothers/ my uncles are still bothered by it - in large part because the niece with the ring is young and never even knew her grandmother).  [/quote]

OP, new poster here but I've looked over the thread. See what I put into bold above from your update. This is very much like the situation my husband's family had; when his grandfather died, leaving three adult daughters, the youngest daughter was the one who took it hardest, was most emotional, "acted a bit more entitled" about things as you put it. Her father's death (though he was very elderly, it was expected, etc.) unleashed a lot of turmoil in her and made her lash out at both her sisters for a very long time after the death. The disposing of every single object from the late father's house became a reason for her to fight someone, so her sisters mostly acquiesced -- they don't care much about the objects anyway but the younger sister in her grief was inordinately attached to every item, however small. I could absolutely see her doing something like taking a ring she felt was hers by right as the most grieving of the siblings, in her own mind. Is it a good way to react? No. Is it human and fallible? Yes. And forgivable.

There may have been MUCH more going on in your aunt's mind when grandma died in 1992 than any of you remember or realize now, so many years later. When she obtained the ring, your aunt was still just days past her mother's death and probably was not thinking or reasoning clearly at all when she saw a chance to take the ring. She may only have known, in some split-second if a funeral director said, "Do you want the jewelry back before we close the casket today" or whatever,  "I want it because it was mom's" and not have had any thought about repercussions or other people -- that probably hit her later which is why she put it away. Grief makes some people do things that aren't objectively right but that seem right in their heads at that moment, especially if there is a sudden choice to make, like take the ring or let it be buried. And especially if there are other old resentments or arguments with siblings, which can bubble up at stressful times like those.

I'm not saying what your aunt did was right. I'm saying that it was long ago, it happened very, very soon after a death that clearly rocked her world, and I hope everyone can let this go.

As for breaking up the ring, well, is it better to have the ring go back into storage because the style isn't one that any of the younger women (relatives or in-law) would actually wear? For me, it's better to be able to say that the stones are now being worn, looked at and admired every single day than to insist they stay in a setting that might get them tossed into a safe again and never seen for another generation. As for the wearer not having known grandma --what better way to talk with her abou the grandmother she didn't know than to talk about the ring with her, recount how grandma loved those sparkly diamonds, how grandpa gave it to her, etc.
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