Paula and I have helped clean out houses of folks who have passed away, and I've come home wanting to get rid of stuff. I look around our own house and I realize that almost nothing will have any value after I'm gone, even to my own kids.
Among other things, there are thousands of pictures, now digitized, that bring me back to the moments when they were taken. Almost no one will recognize the folks or the places, or what significance they had. The vast majority won't mean anything to anyone.
But they did to me, and that makes it hard to let them go.
I have a canvas duffel that my kind father bought me at the camping store when I was twelve. I overloaded it, not knowing what I needed at Camp Thunderbird for my very first week away from home. I'm sure that even Goodwill won't want it, but it still carries my name where I printed it on the side. I remember carefully filling it with my clothes and gear, and then lugging it to our campsite from the bus.
Or my blue shirt tail, cut off by my flight instructor when I was sixteen the day I soloed an airplane for the first time; the piece of cloth was proudly hung up in the airport lounge with others. No one will know the strength of that moment to me.
My missionary calendar book, full of appointments that brought joy or heartache, names of people for whom I worked and prayed, themselves now long gone.
The beautiful small plate received on our wedding day from Mrs. Palmer, the kind neighbor that gave me a ride to school every day during sixth grade. She talked to me as she drove, and seemed to care.
And thus the stuff ends up that was attached to a life. It's moved aside, leaving room for someone else to have the millions of small and large experiences that will define their character, which in the end is one of the only things that you can take with you.
Ah, but won't the memories somehow cling to that kayak helmet? Shouldn't they recognize how important that diploma was when they come to clean out the house? Not likely - it's time for them to build their own memories, unencumbered by my things.
But for a few more moments, let them matter, at least to me.
Dave
