The Traces Left Behind

One of my co-workers suggested this subject and I thought it could be interesting.

When my mother died we, her children, came in and divided her possessions with one of my sisters acting as executor. We sorted through things, kept some, sold some and gave some away. My sister still has quite a bit that she offers to us all each time we’re together. But what will happen to our stuff? When we no longer need it will our children or grandchildren come in and find the things that are significant to us or will they be meaningless to them? Would they want the furniture we use every day or will they throw it out? Will they see the old computer I use and giggle at its age and slowness and say, “It goes in the trash”? Will they look at my extensive vinyl collection and say, “Sell what you can and junk the rest”? What about the tapes, reel-to reel and cassette, will they look on them as curiosities only and not worth listening to what is on them?  Will they see the books and say, “They take-up too much space, we can get them in e-books if we want them, off they go.”? Will they look as well at the things I love, and the things for which I stand and say,”Worthless”?

I find as I grow older many of the things I value are increasingly looked down on by co-workers and the other people around me. My thoughts and views, dreams and desires are from another era. Sometimes when I voice them I see looks of condescension or even rage. Will the nuclear family be reduced to a compressed electronic shadow of itself, will it be so re-defined as to be unrecognizable? Will my faith be tossed aside as “junk” and abandoned by those who follow? Will the songs, stories, poems, plays and essays I have written “go in the trash”?

I wonder.