cats and dogs Ecclesiasticus

Woke up this morning, the street full of cars, an estate sale on Woolen Mills Road. None of the neighbors had mentioned it to me, indeed, none of the neighbors were on hand, the notification went out via Internet.

Professional Personal Property Liquidation

What constitutes a life? Oh! Sadness beyond expression. I suppose it's the job of the Liquidator to drop a neutron bomb, separate out all the organic material and personal ephemera. Pack the living past in garbage bags for immediate disposal.
Leave behind the ashtrays, silver service, tools, furniture, Life magazines, all the collectible items that could have come from anywhere, from any old person's house.

What constitutes a life? We struggle to look back in time, to save shards of an era and a neighborhood that possessed a sense of community beyond anything we will know.
Blessedly the Liquidators missed a few items. One of them, a "certificate of longevity" issued to the beautiful Edna, three days after her 109th birthday, April 2, 1999.
The other, Louise's 1931 high school yearbook.

And some there be, which have no memorial;
who are perished, as though they
had never been; and are become as though
they had never been born;
and their children after them.

Sirach 44:9