Thoughts on lives

In the course of my job at a community mental health center I did evaluations on people in nursing facilities. One day I was at the shredder, culling charts of those who had died. I placed the sheets of paper, with the identifying information, in the shredder. It suddenly dawned on me that these were lives, since dead… gone into the shredder. After I shredded them who would remember them? I decided to take their lives and keep them alive.

I took the papers, shredded most of the information but kept the biographical data.

I started thinking about all of our lives. We are all going to go into the shredder… our identifying information gone…. Names, social security number etc. Our families and friends will remember us, do memorials and all of the other things we do when people die.

But the salient features of all of us are gone. What were our favorite books? What music stirred our souls? What was our story… really?

When we read the obituaries of people they give basic information. Now that newspapers charge by the inch the obituaries tend to be rather matter of fact. “So and so died on… She/he was born in… She/he belonged to…. She/he is survived by…. Memorials can be sent to….”

Some smaller communities and, it seems, those communities in the western states, continue to run colorful obituaries. They give the reader a sense of who the deceased was.

All of us have a story… not only the rich and the powerful but all of us.

The persons here all were born, lived and died…. Just as we all do.