Mortality

[€uroMeinke]

Don't mean to bring the mood down for anyone, but this topic seems to have converged on me this weekend. Yesterday I learned one of my high school acquaintances died of a heart attack, a fact made more sad as he followed his wife who died maybe a month or two ago, after a long hospital stay. So it's weird to be celebrating my 50th this year and realizing that I have a growing list of people I knew that did not make it to this point.

Add to this a recent stay at a cabin in Joshua Tree that once belonged to a ceramicist/artist, Francette, who died of cancer in France but seemingly left her place ready to return to. I blogged about this, and this morning I got a note from someone who knew her. It was strange to come across someone's personal artifacts and then start to put together her legacy. As far as I can tell she had no children or close relatives to take anything, and not having kids myself I wonder what odd mysterious legacy I might leave some random person to discover.

Yesterday I also listened to an old Radiolab podcast that seemed to be about the same topic, someone finding a collection of letters along a roadside and trying to reconstruct the person's life. I kind of feel I did the same thing with Francette and wonder what new light might be shed - and if she'd look upon my reconstruction with dread or fondness.

Add to the mix, tomorrow will be the first anniversary of my own mother's death. I continue to pour through her photographs and papers putting together pieces of my parents life that were unknown to me in my childhood. It's still odd to me that I can't take some of this stuff back to my mother and ask simple questions about the things I find - I can only speculate or keep digging a little deeper in hopes something will turn up to answer my questions.

THis has me thinking about what legacy I might leave, or would want to leave to someone coming across my artifacts without the benefit of having me around to ask simple questions.

Anyway, my thoughts ramble on this topic, I'm a blend of amusement and sorrow over much of this but thought I'd throw this out there for anyone else to share any post-mortum detective work they may have done, and how it changed the way it made them think of themselves.