For What It's Worth?

With the funeral past and tears and hugs all around everyone returned to their respective homes around the globe. Fast-forward fifteen days. The tribe returns, although in limited numbers, to set the process in motion for the disposition of the estate.
Having been in the solid waste business the past thirty-five years, I have come to see many cherished memories cast into the dustbin of life. Pictures of some long past summer idyllic, holidays, birthdays, graduations and other special occasions that make the mileposts in our lives. Often I would take time to just pick up a discarded photo book and look sadly at the memories that these people once thought so precious and dear. I thought about whose children they were. And had they cast their parents memories into the dustbin of life?.
I saw the faded color photos, the black and whites with the cut off heads or the out of focus lens. The fashions of years past. The hairstyles we wouldn’t be caught dead in today! The embarrassing photos that parents often take of their children. Or the photos taken on the sly of that first kiss or the party where someone was caught wearing the lampshade. Really I have seen these! Before me was a short and condensed version of a family’s life and their good times. Their memories. Their life on Kodak paper.
The sad reality though was that all of this meant so little to those who came after. In addition to the photos were the knickknacks and assorted flotsam of someone’s life. Meaningful to them but not to their survivors.
I thought myself hardened to all of this. But in the past week much of the lives my In-laws was cast to the fate of the trash man. Yes the photo albums were saved and will be pasted on to future generations for safe keeping and keeping memories alive for the future generations. Many of the knickknacks we sold for cents on the memory in a hastily thrown together yard sale, while the leftovers were thrown into the dumpster.
It’s very hard to think about the little things we accumulate during our lives as being only precious to us during our lives and not to anyone else. So one must sit back and really think hard what our children would save and throw away when it’s our time to go. Life has become a quest for material belongings and in the end you can’t take them with you except for a box of Oreo cookies, a can of root beer and Mr. Met. So with that in mind why do we obsess over things in our lives that in the end are bound for the trash heap of life?