It stops with me. This invisible burden that I've carried for decades definitely stops with me. I'm the last of the line on my father's side and I have no children. The name, in all its forms stops with me. But, it is much more than the name, isn't it? It's the legacy, the family, the historical continuation.
Maybe it's just a construct. We are all brothers and sisters, right? The family of man, or more accurately stated the human family. That helps to ease the burden.
I don't think about it all that much and I recognize that the word burden may be too excessive. What I have begun to think about is what will happens to all the evidence that the family did exist. I have become the keeper of all that remains. The photos, documents, important papers that once held such import as to be kept secure and protected.
I opened the storage tub that houses this archive today. Envelopes that contain family photos covering 4 decades in various shades of sepia and fading gray. What happens to these glimpses of life when nobody claims or wants them? That is the burden. I fantasize about some sort of ritual. Wish I could burn them and then a clean solution would enable me to move on. But that is not possible, so I must consider all that revolves around the idea of trash. People's lives in a trash can. Their poised and posed smiles, their happiness, real or imagined.
A couple of unexpected items stop me in my tracks. The guest book from my father's funeral signed by a few neighbors and his brother and sister. Inside were my notes for the comments I made at his funeral. That was 50 years ago. Not needed now. And, for some reason, my original transistor radio from my Jr. High days. The old Sears Silvertone still has the earphone plugged in. It appears in good order but closer inspection reveals a melted battery and sticky insides. The top 10 will never ring from its tiny speaker. I think of sleepless nights I spent with that ear phone firmly planted in my right ear. The first Dylan songs, the shocking news from the weekend of the Kennedy/Oswald assassinations, the long version of "Light My Fire." KFWB and KRLA. KMPC for the baseball games and KCBS for all news all day.
I have no choice. If don't do the great purge, the necessary disposal, who will? There is some satisfaction in knowing these traces of time remembered don't fall in the wrong hands. I sometimes think that the worst case scenario would be disrespectful, or painful in some unknown way.
So I will lay the record to rest, not to waste. I'll do what is necessary to avoid anything untoward. I'll give these remnants a final look and surrender to the unavoidable, knowing I did the right thing.
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