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[ablewasi]

...For those who hold their pride too close, it brings only fear.



Discuss



!a

[grasshopper]

Every once in awhile, I get nervous, and somewhat embarrassed, thinking about what people will find among my belongings once I die.

Then I think about how I won't care, because I'll be dead.

But then I think, but I'm not dead now, and I care now about then.

[ablewasi]

Every once in awhile, I get nervous, and somewhat embarrassed, thinking about what people will find among my belongings once I die.

Then I think about how I won't care, because I'll be dead.

But then I think, but I'm not dead now, and I care now about then.

Has anyone ever told you...

...how well you sing?


!a

[zharkov]

Y'all getting this stuff from some edgy Japanese anime film?

[chemystery]

Every once in awhile, I get nervous, and somewhat embarrassed, thinking about what people will find among my belongings once I die.

Then I think about how I won't care, because I'll be dead.

But then I think, but I'm not dead now, and I care now about then.

I occasionally worry about this too.  I once went so far as to place items I didn't want my family to know about in a box with my best friend's name on it, in hopes that they would try to send it to her rather than look through it.  
I really don't think it would work.

[larryc]

Some years ago I went to an estate sale. When it opened we grave robbers rushed in--the deceased had a garage of fine woodworking tools. I stood in the crowd of grasping bargain hunters and watched someone's treasured collection of tools scatter to the winds in fifteen minutes.

And that my friends is all there is.

[ablewasi]

Some years ago I went to an estate sale. When it opened we grave robbers rushed in--the deceased had a garage of fine woodworking tools. I stood in the crowd of grasping bargain hunters and watched someone's treasured collection of tools scatter to the winds in fifteen minutes.

And that my friends is all there is.

In similar, I use to go to such sales and buy the "box of everything we can't think of how to sort".  Five dollars or ten.  A cardboard box with the leaves folded and grease finger marks.  It's just a box of junk.  Screws, nails, bits of stuff.  Someone's junk.  Someone's life.  Once I came across  a brass plaque with the name (changed) Jonas Chambers, and the claim "Custom crafted Jewelry". I searched local archives, but I never found anything about him.  I still have the plaque.  When I die, someone else will have it.

Or they'll toss is away.


!a

[ablewasi]

[quote author=chemystery link=topic=51977.msg993338#msg993338
I occasionally worry about this too.  I once went so far as to place items I didn't want my family to know about in a box with my best friend's name on it, in hopes that they would try to send it to her rather than look through it.  
I really don't think it would work.
[/quote]

No matter that it would work. You give your trust to your friend.

!a

[magistra]

I wanted to link to Iggy Pop doing Death is Certain, but apparently the punk scene hasn't properly hit YouTube.  Anyway, it fits.

Though the archaeologist in me does think that you can take it with you.  It's almost a shame that we don't ritually bury objects (much) anymore -- it tells so much about who people were and what they deemed important.  Burial is an act of love, and by burying objects with the person it signifies not only who they were, but that they were loved and respected.

I've told my mother that my books go to my department's library.  I have nothing else of value to anyone.  But my bestest book ever goes in the grave with me.  As does a bag of Oreos.  I'm tempted to demand my comforter and some pjs too.  Just in case.

[ablewasi]

.  Burial is an act of love, and by burying objects with the person it signifies not only who they were, but that they were loved and respected.

When my mother died, she had a small cross pin.  It was precious to her. It signified her relationship to a fellowship that I do not share.  She wanted it to be buried with her. I tried to find it.  I couldn't.
She was buried. Without it.  I found it later.  I have it.  It is hers. Not mine.

What now?

!a

[magistra]

You could bury it in her plot.  You could have it buried with you.  Or you could give it to your daughter (I'm afraid I can't remember, but I think you have daughters, yes?  If it's sons, you can still give it to one of them.)   Your child would appreciate it, your mother would never know, and she lives on in your children anyway.  Tell them about your mother as you do so. 

You tried your best to find it, and couldn't.  You have nothing to reproach yourself for.  In Christianity, it's not about what you wear or what you have anyway -- quite the opposite.  If she truly had that fellowship, she has it still.

[conjugate]

.  Burial is an act of love, and by burying objects with the person it signifies not only who they were, but that they were loved and respected.

When my mother died, she had a small cross pin.  It was precious to her. It signified her relationship to a fellowship that I do not share.  She wanted it to be buried with her. I tried to find it.  I couldn't.
She was buried. Without it.  I found it later.  I have it.  It is hers. Not mine.

What now?

!a

Is it still grave robbery if you dig her up to put something in?  Seriously, what Magistra said.

Every once in awhile, I get nervous, and somewhat embarrassed, thinking about what people will find among my belongings once I die.

Then I think about how I won't care, because I'll be dead.

But then I think, but I'm not dead now, and I care now about then.

I occasionally worry about this too.  I once went so far as to place items I didn't want my family to know about in a box with my best friend's name on it, in hopes that they would try to send it to her rather than look through it.  
I really don't think it would work.

So here's a strange plan.  Put all the things you really don't want other people (like your family) to know about — nasty letters, nude photos, blackmail proceeds, the last bit of the loot from that last time you knocked over a liquor store — into a shoe box.  Then in black indelible marker, label the shoe box, Mortal Remains of Fluffy, Beloved Guinea Pig.  Please Respect His Eternal Rest.  Upon your passing, one of your descendants, borrowing HazMat gear for the occasion, will bury the box deep in the backyard behind your house.

Decades later, after the house has been sold a few times, it will probably be demolished to make room for a support pylon for a low-earth-orbital launch facility.  Upon discovery, a roguish employee will place the box in the test payload.  At that point, a small but subtle engineering error will lead the first experimental launch to explode at very high altitude, and your dark secrets will burn to ashes upon re-entry into the atmosphere, providing a brief moment of joy to some unsuspecting descendant of yours, who might try to wish upon the resulting meteor.

I almost added that some of the ashes might fall back to Earth to lodge in the eye of the descendant of someone you particularly don't like, but I thought I'd better not since I don't want this post to become far-fetched or exaggerated.

As for myself, I believe that in a few thousand years my place in human history will be less significant than that of the lowliest pyramid construction worker, and in a few billion years, there will be nothing of humanity left at all, in all probability.

[crazybatlady]

As others have noted elsewhere, Randy Pausch died. If you haven't seen his last lecture, you really should: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo. Death doesn't have to be the final shame at all.

My dear ablewasi, your mother already has the pin that matters. So what do you need to do to make your heart feel it's right? That's what needs to be done.

As for those boxes of crap, I have one box labeled "for fun when I'm dead" (I'm not kidding) and it's full of those embarrassing things along with their stories. For example, the crazy rainbow hippie hat comes complete with tales from the Grateful Dead tour; the Greekish coaster with a threesome on it is accompanied with a comical story of a strange man, a bar, a pair of 22-year old American tourists, and a language barrier....

Anyway, I guess I want to say LIVE. Revel in it all, the great and the gross. When I die, I hope to say it's been fun.

[And I'm back....]

cbl

[magistra]

Conjugate, either you need to stop drinking, or start.

Anyone else ever inherit, or perhaps find at a yard sale or the like, old photos?  Where the subjects can no longer be identified?  It's so sad -- millennia of no photography, and now we have a method of memorializing what people truly looked like -- what they wore, whom they knew, what they did -- and so often all that is lost because they didn't have descendants, or worse, no descendants who cared.  I don't know why, but it really hits me.  Something about looking into their faces.  You know you need to throw the photos out -- they're useless -- but you just can't.

On Preview: as always, CBL rules!  All hail the CBL!

[conjugate]

Conjugate, either you need to stop drinking, or start.

Thanks.  I should start, and visit the Venting Thread.