I was sitting there the other day beside a dumpster parked in front of my dad and Mama’s old house.
That dumpster will preach to you if you sit beside it long enough.
Because sooner or later, somebody’s gonna clean out your house.
And mine.
That’s a hell of a thing to think about.
Every day, somewhere, somebody is standing in an old house opening drawers, pulling boxes down from closets, digging through cabinets, and trying to decide what stays and what goes.
Keep.
Give away.
Throw it in the dumpster.
And somewhere along the way, you realize you ain’t just cleaning out a house.
You’re sorting through somebody’s life.
All That Stuff
Looking around Dad and Mama’s place, there was stuff everywhere.
Stuff they bought.
Stuff they saved.
Stuff they figured they might need.
Stuff that probably meant something once upon a time.
And I imagine some of it meant a lot.
That old thing sitting in the corner that looks like junk to me might've had a story attached to it.
Maybe Mema remembered where she bought it.
Maybe Poppa worked overtime to pay for that.
Maybe it came from somebody they loved who has been gone twenty years.
You don't know.
All you see now is stuff.
And that's when it hits you.
The stuff in your house right now feels important too.
Your records.
Your tools.
Your clothes.
Your furniture.
Your little treasures stuck in boxes because you're certain its worth keeping.
We spend half our lives collecting stuff and the other half trying to find somewhere to put the damn stuff.
Then one day somebody else comes along with a cardboard box and a trash bag.
That's life, ain't it?
Looking for Treasure
When you're cleaning out an old family house, though, you don't just start throwing everything away.
You hunt.
You open the little boxes inside the bigger boxes.
You dig through drawers.
You unfold old papers.
You look behind things.
Because somewhere down inside you believe there might be a treasure waiting on you.
Not necessarily money.
Something better.
A photograph.
A letter.
An old pocketknife.
A recipe written in Mama's handwriting.
A record somebody played a hundred times Saturday nights ago.
Some little relic that can make it through to another generation.
Something you can hold in your hand and say:
This was theirs.
So you make yourself a little keepsake box.
And that's all right.
Keep some things.
Pass a few things down.
Tell the stories that belong to them.
But sitting beside that dumpster, I started thinking maybe the real treasure wasn't inside that house at all.
The Good Stuff Ain't Stuff
Maybe the treasure was all the days that happened there.
Sitting around the table.
Laughing at something stupid.
Arguments that didn't amount to nothing.
Sunday dinners.
Christmas mornings.
Coffee.
Somebody walking through the door.
Somebody hollering from the other room.
Them little moments don't look valuable while you're living them.
That's the trick life plays on you.
You don't know you're living the good old days while they're still just Tuesday.
Then years pass.
People leave.
The house gets quiet.
And one day you're standing beside a dumpster wishing you could trade every damn thing in that house for one more afternoon with the people who used to live there.
That's the treasure.
It was never the stuff.
It was them.
It was you with them.
Get Your Stuff in Order
So maybe there's a lesson sitting beside that old dumpster.
Get your stuff in order.
Sure.
Clean out that closet you've been threatening to clean for twelve years.
Throw some junk away.
Put a name on the things you want somebody to keep.
Make life a little easier on whoever gets stuck cleaning up behind you.
But more important than that—
Get your living in order.
Enjoy your people while they're here.
Sit a little longer.
Tell the story again.
Play the record.
Eat the pie.
Make the phone call.
Take the picture.
Say I love you while there's still somebody standing there to hear it.
Because someday somebody is going to go through our shit too.
They'll pick through all the things we thought were important, looking for one little keepsake worth taking home.
And I hope when they do, the best thing we left them ain't sitting in a box.
I hope it's a head full of stories.
A heart full of memories.
And enough love to make throwing away the rest of our junk easier.
When they finally clean out your house, what do you hope your people remember most about you?