An heirloom becomes a burden when declining it is treated as declining the person who owned it.

An object offered from someone’s estate arrives with an implication that refusing it is refusing them. So people accept furniture they have no room for and keep it for decades out of guilt, and the object becomes a weight rather than a memory.

You are allowed to decline and still love the person. Keep something small that genuinely means something and let the rest go to somebody who wants it. And when you are the one passing things on, say plainly that it is fine to say no, since that sentence releases people from years of unnecessary obligation.