It seems we don’t know what we leave behind until it is gone. It’s also true that our songwriters, authors, personal diarists, all (if not in a singular voice) tell us that. But we take no notice. Even when we say, yeah, yeah, true, true. The problem, it seems to me, is that we can only take note of the past, our history. From here, from now, from a future projection— is nothing. We don’t know what will fill our memories, fill the file box of wrongs, loss, despair, and joy. Or we may know an example: the dog I love today will leave me to grieve the same as the dogs who have gone before. But we don’t feel it, we don’t know those things inside-out. Our mind observes, undaunted by Truths, only the facts. And so we stumble on, leaving behind the things we will mourn, or forget. And we forget the most important thing that the notetakers don’t tell us to remember. When we leave the old for the new, we need to be sure it is replaced with something of worth.