Diamond for life

Introduction

Some of you have already read my first blog post, “Little pleasure” in my series on “stories behind the jewel” and I hope you enjoyed the read. Diamond for life is a story of grief. As I already mentioned in Little Pleasure, jewellery is made for a variety of very personal reasons. This story is about keeping a lost one close.

The special commission

One ordinary day, I was in my workshop with a woman, slightly younger than my mother. She came to me to have a pendant made. As she stood in my workshop, all those years ago, she told me her story. About 6 months before she came to me, she had lost her beautiful daughter in a car accident. Her daughter was 21 and about 10 years younger than me. The woman told me that her daughter had been cremated. She had sent her daughter’s ashes to America to be compressed into a diamond. The idea behind the pendant was that she could wear it near her heart. Her daughter forever close to her everywhere she went. Her private comfort only known to her.

The beauty

At that time, this technology was new to the jewellery industry, but it has grown immensely over the past 15 years. To some, the idea that you can “preserve” someone, by turning them into the most precious gemstone on earth, has a romantic appeal. Yet, I realise that for a lot of people, it must seem morbid to have loved ones’ ashes turned into a diamond. Although, I can see that it is a beautiful way to commemorate someone.