All For My Grandmother’s Ruby Earrings

I’m currently dead now and I was 25 years old when I was murdered.

My name is Ruby Sheridan and my story started when I was 15 years old.

It was about one year ago whenever my sister and I first moved in with our grandparents.

Our dad, Felix Sheridan was accused of a crime.

Even though he hated me for some reason, he was angelic to the rest of the world it seemed.

So it honestly didn’t make any sense to me that he was in jail.

Maybe because he loved my sister more than life itself, but I guess I got leftovers whenever he was not angry.

However, when he was in an angry mood, he would bruise and hit me every now and then.

I think that’s why I understood how he was falsely accused but yet that he was still accused.

But after a year passed that Adele and I lived with our grandparents, my grandmother Calliope Sheridan, had these precious, dazzling, ruby earrings.

She was wanting to pass down these earrings to one of us, for us to pass down to future generations of our family.

So that way if something were to happen to her, we could spread her incredible legacy and the love that she had for us.

These earrings were incredibly important and valuable to our family because our grandmother got them from our grandpa Henry Sheridan, for their 50th wedding anniversary.

Symbolized their everlasting love and happiness.

Highlighted their commitment for each other and our family.

I remember that night of October 13th, 1908, the night that led to the happiest of final years that I had lived, but eventually to my death exactly ten years later on October 13th, 1918.

Even as I am dead and am being judged for my life decisions on Earth, I can picture our Grandma Calliope and our Grandpa Henry, telling Adele and myself about these beautiful ruby earrings that she had gotten and how the sister who had made the wiser decisions would be receiving these earrings.

In that huge turning point moment, Grandpa Henry said that his and Grandma’s decision would be affected by the opinions that our father had of the both of us as well as people like teachers or neighbors in addition to other elderly people that we knew that our grandparents thought that they could trust.

After the speech that our grandparents gave us about our Grandma Calliope’s stunning earrings, five minutes went by and we were waiting for Grandma Calliope, and Grandpa Henry to come out of their room and tell us their final decision.

I remember my heart beating so fast in that very moment.

The dark clouds with the thunder striking which I could see the view of.

Grandma Calliope and Grandpa Henry spoke to both Adele and myself individually.

Grandma was nurturing and caring whenever her and Grandpa told me their choice.

Grandpa’s words were cold and callous.

Either way it was devastating because nobody knew about Dad’s favorite child being Adele.

I only got the bare minimum.

Anything I did was considered awful as well as cruel since all that he could afford was his sweet Adele.

So it hurt like the deadliest snake bite whenever our grandparents decided that Adele was the new rightful owner of our Grandma Calliope’s earrings.

Then a few hours passed, everyone was sound asleep, and I heard the loudest scream from my sister’s mouth.

I remember running for my life as far as I could possibly run and our Grandma Calliope was actually worried sick about me.

She followed me and was trying to keep up and I don’t know what came over me but I was running, and never stopped it seemed.

I took shelter in a small town in Dunkeld, Scotland where my Grandma Calliope followed me the whole way to.

I was able to give her the biggest hug, cry in her arms again after a few days of being in hiding.

She told me that something had happened back home and that we should not go back.

For the next ten years before the most agonizing moment of my life, my Grandma Calliope and I resided in that small village of Dunkeld, Scotland on Cathedral Street.

Life was so peaceful and perfect, finally the thing that I was longing and praying endlessly for had become the greatest reality, a better life where I would be known for who I actually was, not what Dad, Grandpa Henry, the other adults and their kids or even Adele had thought of me.

Waking up every day to the beautiful breeze and the satisfying sunrise.

The smell of the grass in the backyard.

The sweet strolls and countless walks through the street with my Grandma Calliope.

The dog that I was able to raise who was my everything.

The church where every prayer gathering mattered more than a million marigolds.

It spoke to my soul and healed my heart where life felt pure.

All of the negative thoughts disappeared.

The nearby coffee shop that our neighbors ran. I would get the best cup of vanilla coffee every morning from there.

Twirling in the vast garden of roses that my Grandma Calliope started.

The community atmosphere. The environment. The people.

A village where everyone treated each and every citizen like they mattered and belonged.

A place where people were sympathetic.

Somewhere that you could trust people and rely on people.

Where promises were fulfilled and never broken.

A place where you could make the most out of each and every day that you lived there.

A place where no matter if you looked absolutely stunning or you had nice clothes, luxury jewelry, or if you were homeless, trying to just survive, barely making it and holding on for dear life, you always had a purpose.

The place that I am praying that my after life will be like now that I am dead.

What a blessing that reality was.

The endless gratitude I still have.

It was incredible.

When I was 25, my tenth and final year that I lived there. Apparently, Adele had found out where I had ran off to years ago because now I find myself running even faster than I ran all those years ago, but where I couldn’t keep running.

I only ran to a nearby park. Hermitage Park.

It was even darker than it was ten years ago.

I found myself lying on the ground, tripping on the tree branches, wondering why Adele looked furious.

She was charging at me, holding the sharpest dagger, where even though she had not stabbed me yet.

I could literally, and mentally feel the greatest pain of my life before it had even happened.

Before I was officially no more.

My heart was pounding even faster than it was ten years ago.

I was filled with more terror than I ever had in my entire life.

I found some grass to lay on.

I knew that my life was going to end very quickly.

Then I saw Dad standing next to Adele.

At this point I definitely had tears in my eyes.

The breeze that was normally light and refreshing blew me down to the ground even more.

It felt like the wildest and most chaotic tornado that had ever existed was happening in that very moment.

I don’t know how Dad and Adele even found out where I was all that time in the first place.

I was reliving my childhood fear all over again.

Adele was yelling at me, and Dad was yelling at me even louder.

I don’t know where Grandma Calliope was in that moment.

I don’t even know if she knew that anything was going on.

It happened so fast and it was honestly such a blur that as I share my story of death, it has taken all of my brain power to do so.

Adele was yelling out the words “Repent Ruby, Repent.” as loud as if she possibly could.

It was almost as if she was secretly scared of Dad too but just did not want to tell me.

Dad came on at me harder and by the sound of his voice, I could tell that he was even angrier at me than he was when I was a child.

I could feel the temperature outside drastically cooling down and getting colder.

I was definitely freezing to death.

I was tired and weakened from all of the running I did and I could not move since I was fatigued.

I was praying that I would be able to get my words out right whenever I would repent.

I knew that I could not spend a lot of time thinking about what all that had happened to me in my entire life and leading up to that very moment.

I knew that whatever I said that it had to be the absolute truth and that I had to come up with my answer quickly.

Dad was saying the same thing that Adele was saying.

That I needed to fess up for my childhood and for what happened ten years ago when Grandma Calliope and I ran away from home.

Because I knew that there was absolutely no way of getting out of this whatsoever. Regardless of if I decided to repent or not, I would be shot dead and killed.

I knew that whatever I did needed to count.

My decision in that moment would be the very last important one that I would have to make in my life.

I needed to do what mattered to me the most.

No matter how hard my decision, whatever I decided would affect me in my eternity.

Either admitting what happened and the reason why Grandma Calliope and I ran away from home even though it would probably hurt my pride to tell the truth, since my dad is someone who lied to my sister and who lied to everyone.

Or live out my never ending eternity absolutely regretting not admitting the situation to Adele and Dad, even though they were the main people who made my childhood a mentally, physically, and emotionally difficult one.

I still love them.

I still love everyone in my family.

I see the good in them, even if it feels like the smallest sprinkle of sugar.

Even though Adele and Dad are the reason why my life is about to end, I have messed up a lot during my life and I love my family.

So right then and there. I made it right by finally fessing up for my actions and slowly but surely getting every word of truth out.

“My name is Ruby Sheridan and what really happened on October 13th, of 1908 was after Grandma Calliope and Grandpa Henry told me that Adele was the person who was the rightful owner of our Grandma Calliope’s priceless ruby earrings, exactly 2 hours after everyone went to sleep for the night, I was searching my bedroom closet for a knife and apparently a knife was there that I didn’t know I had, it was probably a kitchen knife, but it was definitely sharp”.

“I took it and I was as quiet as a mouse whenever I dragged Grandpa Henry out of bed, grabbed the gun on the door while I was holding the knife and laid him outside of our house and I quickly but precisely murdered him and made sure he was dead.”

“To distract Adele from the situation, I quietly went into her room, hid under her bed, found the location of her leg, then slowly but without hesitation and a peep, I took Grandpa Henry’s gun since he was already dead and banged his gun with as much force as I possibly could on her leg and then proceeded to move her leg fast and with force and I was able to break her leg.”

“That was when I heard Adele scream violently and crying out for help since she was in immense pain.”

“Because I am being completely honest in this moment, I manipulated Grandma Calliope, to run far away with me.”

“I lied to her and told her that one of the neighbors was going around with a gun and trying to find people to kill, as in I lied about there being a mass murder in our town.”

“I didn’t think we should stay here because I loved her and did not want her to die.”

”As I was saying those words, I located the ruby earrings in their bedroom, put them in my pocket and stole them.”

”I only wore them when she was not present and I was going somewhere without her.”

“I made sure that she would never find them again.”

“I don’t know how but Grandma Calliope actually believed me.”

“So we ran to the village of Dunkeld, Scotland.”

“We stayed there for the entire time.”

“I highly regret in my final moments not repenting and telling her the truth because she was our only family member who I felt did not have a problem with me.”

”However, I am thankful that I was able to tell both of you guys, my dad and my sister, what actually happened in that very moment.”

“I just want the both of y’all to know that I am so sorry, I hate and despise the wrong doings that I did and have done up until this point where I am about to die.”

“Kill me, I’ve earned it.”

“I have the earrings with me and I will happily give them to Adele.”

“That was what I should have done all this time.”

“Dad, all I ask is that I want you to keep loving Adele and giving her the world because you are an amazing father.”

”I am sorry for everything I have done.”

“I will die with zero regrets now that I have repented for all of my pain and suffering as well as my horrible actions as a child.”

So that is what I did indeed, I admitted to stealing my grandmother’s precious ruby earrings.

I gave those ruby earrings to Adele with the box, just like my grandmother would have wanted me to do all along.

I admitted to murdering Henry Sheridan, and breaking Adele Sheridan’s leg.

Then I was stabbed to death and killed all for a pair of ruby earrings that I had during my final years of life.

I am thankful that I was able to repent and I hope that my family will be thankful that I did so as well.

My name is Ruby Sheridan and I stole my grandmother’s ruby earrings.

I am dead but grateful that I repented for my wrong actions.