From ancient times and even today, memorial or mourning jewelry is helping people with a way to heal in serenity while keeping the loved one nearest. Before we delve into the history of mourning jewelry trends and innovations, let’s do a quick touch on the basics.
It is excruciating to go through the death of a loved one. When you lose someone you care about. Your life unexpectedly turns upside down. After their heavenly abode, you remember the good times with them, the bad times when you both might have worked together, and when they touched your lives with their words or gestures to make us feel whole. Their memory is what you are left to cherish every moment spent together and every lesson learned together.
What is The Definition of Mourning Jewelry?
Mourning jewelry has been around since the dawn of time. Any jewel or piece created to honor a loved one who has passed away is considered mourning or ashes jewelry. It has been used to keep loved ones near for hundreds of years. The cremation jewelry serves as a constant remembrance of a loved one who has passed away.
In this post, we will be touching on history and up. However, it has existed before the mentioned dates.
The History
Mourning jewelry, which dates back to the 1600s and became increasingly popular in the 1800s, is possibly the most expressive form of jewelry simply because of its emotional significance and message. Whether simple, black, unadorned, intricate, engraved, or embellished with a diamond, the pieces all conveyed a powerful sense of grief, spirituality, and loss and were used as a touchstone to keep a deceased relative close before the discovery of photography.
There was tremendous creativity in mourning jewelry. As mourning jewelry, people made lockets, pocket watches, rings, and brooches. Different materials were utilized to represent various things and phases of grief. Pearl, for example, denoted the death of a child, and white enamel indicated a single woman’s death. The most prevalent material was black enamel, frequently set in gold and engraved with a quote on life, death, and loss and the person’s name & age.
As mourning jewelry is profoundly personal, symbolic pictures depicting the person or family are painted onto the face of a ring or locket. Each piece of cremation jewelry is delicate and fascinating. Photographs of the deceased and the person’s hair were “painted” onto jewelry or interwoven and placed into a ring or locket, and even utilized as the material to build a ribbon or whole brooch.
Cremation or Mourning Jewelry in Modern Times
Cremation jewelry has become far more modern throughout time. With time, the intricacy is lost. Cremation jewelry was initially designed to alert others that the user was in grief. Cremation jewelry now allows you to keep a loved one close delicately, expressing love and loss without calling attention to the purpose behind the jewelry piece.
While we may be proud of our love, grieving is a personal experience, and cremation jewelry appeals to the wearer because of the solitude it provides. Mourning jewelry comes in various shapes and sizes, including pendants and cremation jewelry bracelets, to suit any purpose or occasion. Ashes jewelry now includes a little chamber for storing a portion of ashes or personal mementos, allowing for a portable remembrance of a loved one.
Is Mourning jewelry only for ashes?
It is a common belief that cremation jewelry is only designed to hold someone’s ashes, but this isn’t true. It might give you a wrong hint when you hear “cremation jewelry,” but it only means anything that holds a souvenir related to your loved one. It could be any of the following:
- Photo
- Hair
- Pet hair or fur
- Pet whiskers
- Baby teeth
- Cremated ashes (cremains)
- Cremation stones from companies like Parting Stone
- Dried flower petals
- Ground from the burial site
- Piece of their clothing
- Paper with their favorite perfume or cologne
There are no limits to love, affection, and remembrance, so it only makes sense for there to be multiple ways to honor a loved one, and ash jewelry is one of them.
The Takeaway!
The mourning process can leave anyone distraught. It is normal to take time to recover from a valuable loss. Cremation jewelry gives you comfort in times of grief. It gives those who have lost a loved one psychological solace by allowing them to maintain at least a part of that person with them. The lovely ash or gemstone jewelry can be worn at any time of the day or night.
Cremation jewelry is a small memorial and should be treated with the same respect and reverence as a burial, entombment, or inurnment. Cremation jewelry, such as cremation pendants, can also be presented as a gift to the bereaved to help them cope with their loss. As a result, the jewelry can be passed down through the generations.
