Grandma's Present

After six years of dating and a year and a half engagement, the wedding day had finally come.

The bride and groom were excited and nervous, which is to be expected, as their families filled the church. The ceremony was beautiful and went smoothly, the reception after was a celebration and everyone had a wonderful time. After all the chaos had subsided and the guest had all left the newlyweds collected their gifts before heading home. All of the presents were handsomely adorned and looked amazing. At the bottom of the pile there was one box, about the size of a shoe box wrapped in plain brown paper. No card, no name. It seemed odd, but its late and its been a long day, no need to worry about it now.

The next day before their flight to go on their honeymoon, they sat down and opened the presents, making sure to keep track of who set what for thank you cards. At last they came to the mysterious brown box. After careful inspection the new couple confirmed there was no sign of any name, or any decoration, just brown paper. This was already really weird but once they open the package it got way weirder.

The package, although lacking anything resembling a decoration, was wrapped neatly. Upon unwrapping they discover it was in fact a shoe box, and a very old one at that.

“This is the brand of shoes my grandma used to wear.” Exclaimed the wife.

This brand of shoes no longer exists. Someone has been holding on to this box for quite some time. Once they removed the top, inside the box were three objects. A necklace, a pocket watch, and a letter. The coupe looked at each other with a puzzled look, almost afraid to touch what they saw.

Her curiosity overcoming her fear, the wife decided to examine the items further. The necklace looked familiar immediately, it looks just like my grandmas. It is a locket with two pictures inside, her grandma and grandpa when they were in their 30s.

It was her grandmas necklace.

Confused yet intrigued, she quickly picked up the pocket watch next. It looked and felt just like her grandpas, and when she turned it over she saw the chip on the back. The one she had put there when she was three and played with his watch.

It was her grandpas pocket watch.

Now she was throughly confused, where did these things come from? The last item in the box was a letter, just a regular looking letter in a regular envelop, but its contents left the new bride speechless.

The letter was address to her and her husband on their wedding day. Her grandmother wrote what she learned from being married for over 35 years and what it takes to make a marriage work. It was truly a beautiful letter filled with love and encouragement from a wise woman who loved her very much. Normally in a situation like this the bride would be overcome with emotion and start crying. However she was too confused and frightened to even cry.

Both of her grandparents have been dead for years.

It must be from someone else in the family, someone who held on to these things for their wedding day. She felt crazy, she didn’t want to tell her husband about it because it sounded too crazy, she needed answers.

She called her mom immediately, her mother said that couldn’t be possible, not only had her grandmother been dead for years, she had dementia later in life and hadn’t been lucid since the late 90s. This made the situation weirder, but there had to be an answer. She contacted every family member who had attended the wedding, when they all said it wasn’t them she called all the distant relatives she knew to see if any of them had sent it. After receiving a no from everyone she asked, she turned to the will her grandparents left as well as the probate file from her grandparents death, hoping for some clue as to who got these items after their death. This search too resulted in no answers. After spending weeks doing research and asking everyone in her family she decided to finally tell her husband.

“I think we got a present from a ghost.”