The Quandary of Legacies

Seven generations of us had lived there at one time or another, and now, finally, we had to let it go. Could we possibly throw away battered books falling apart or that have Grandmother’s signature on a fly leaf? Broken parts of chairs waiting in an attic, decades for repair, photos of identified and unidentified people, hand sewn, stained baby dresses that will never clothe another baby – where should it all go? Here are the books they read, their objects and ghosts of those forbears in their home, our home, now empty and awaiting another existence.