Eventually it comes to this. Someone dies and you must go through their items. Otherwise known as going through their junk. Then later, much later you’ll need to go through the leftovers and sort again, the things you kept and never used. You still can’t bear to do away with the treasures that are nothing but things.

Her plates. The ones she had to have to go with the fancy silverware. The silverware itself. Never used, never polished. Your own unused too. “No one entertains like that today.” That’s what we say, we hippies returned to hippy life.

Today we share gummies and play games or talk of Ethics or Morals or The Reality of God. Better yet, Who is God? Certainly no longer the “Father in Heaven” of our youth. What an answer to tide us over. An answer that doesn’t help with the sorting.

The holding onto is clearly an attempt to hold onto our youth. The memories of certain dinners. The memories of Safety that can no longer be replicated. Just as my son’s blanket won’t make me safe. My daughter once said, “Mom, Joel is not in that blanket.” And yet sometimes I found him there, sometimes as I cried and hung onto it, I saw him as a child, I heard his voice.

So now I wonder what I should do with those plates I’ve never used in all the time since she has been gone. Now here it is. The move to end all moves. The final move, out of the country yet. The move where only essentials are taken. Preparing for that is going to take a while. It’s a good thing I won’t be embarking until next year. But the plates are going to be long gone before then.

Joe Bentley Wisconsin post and photo. From the memory palace, if I were taking the back roads.