Things we leave Behind
I was sorting through some of my things and realized how many of them will probably outlive me. Books are obvious, but even smaller things like medals and rosaries could easily be around long after i’m not the person keeping them anymore, i wonder where they’ll end up sometimes. Hopefully whoever eventually has my rosary will actually pray with it instead of throwing it into a drawer somewhere. I’ve prayed for that person before, whoever they end up being, God already knows them even if i don’t.
it’s strange knowing that somebody could hold something that was important to you without knowing anything about you besides maybe a name written inside a book, but perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing. "Remember that you must die" sounds severe when it’s written plainly like that, but i’ve grown to understand why Christians have kept reminders of death around for so long. Death is one of the few things every person knows will happen and yet we spend most of our lives behaving as though it would be strange to think about it beforehand.
the point isn’t supposed to be that life doesn’t matter because it ends, it’s almost the opposite, if i remember that i won’t be here forever, then what i do while i am here matters more, there will be a last time i use everything i own, even though i won’t know it’s the last time when it happens. A last page i draw, a last book i put back on the shelf, a last time i hold a particular rosary, Eventually somebody else moves those things and life continues perfectly normally around them.
you are going to die, Christ has already conquered death, so decide what you are going to do with the time between those two facts, it doesn’t really allow much room for pretending that earthly things are permanent.
i suppose that’s also why i’ve started caring less about whether somebody remembers my art or anything i did online and more about whether somebody simply remembers to pray for me. eventually my things will be divided between people, accounts will stop being used, drawings will sit somewhere, and my name will probably become something mentioned less and less. But the Church will still be here, and Mass will still be said. i don’t think i used to consider very often that eventually, God willing, my own name will be among the names of the dead. Somebody might light a candle and remember me during prayer, maybe. maybe my name will be written somewhere beside the names of people i never met, and people who never knew me will pray for all of us together. I hope so.
I wonder who will actually remember to do it. The Father, assuming he outlives me. Some of the sisters and brothers, perhaps. Family and friends I hope. I’d like to hope the people who knew me would pray for me when I am gone, I think everyone would want that, if anything, that’s when i would need their prayers without being able to ask for them myself.
perhaps whoever receives my rosary will remember too. Even if they never knew me very well, or never knew me at all, they could still say a prayer for the person whose hands held it before theirs, and maybe years later somebody else will have it after them. I like the thought that an object could keep passing through hands while the same prayers continue being said. There are probably religious objects i’ve touched myself that have already belonged to people whose names i never know. twenty years after someone dies is a long time. fifty is longer. eventually there is a last living person who remembers exactly how somebody sounded when they spoke, what made them laugh, what they did when they were annoyed, all the completely ordinary details that never get written down. Then eventually even that person goes too. Memento mori. Remember that you must die. Not only me. Everyone who remembers me must die too.
So if my things eventually end up scattered between people i’ll never meet, i hope at least something useful survives with them. use the books, wear the medals, keep the drawings if you actually like them and give away whatever you don’t need. none of it was going to remain mine forever anyway.