Everything Will Be Lost…and Maybe That’s What Makes Life so Precious
Times of loss remind us how quickly all the little details that make up our lives will someday be forgotten
February 23, 1947: Bennett has a fever of 102 degrees.
In the months since my father passed away, I’ve been going through boxes of his possessions. There are piles of his childhood report cards, documents from his military service, and cards that he made for his parents on holidays or their birthdays. There’s also a journal — his father’s — from 1947.
Each day of the journal is pre-printed with the date, the rest of the page lined, ready to be filled with thoughts, appointments, notes, events, and whatever else one might think to record. Not every page of this book is filled with my grandfather’s scrawling handwriting, which makes the ones that he did fill out feel more important. Clearly, he felt my father’s fever was worth noting. On another page, he recorded a family outing that went awry, and on another, a shopping trip during which my grandmother bought a new dress that was on sale.
I remember some of these details, including what he recorded from their Christmas Eve feast. Even the fact that he didn’t like it and didn’t think it was good enough for a holiday meal. I…
