The Sum of a Life

I spent much of today rummaging through a distant relative's townhouse. Jasen's grandfather's brother passed away. They didn't get along, but his grandfather is now the final living sibling.
This man lived his entire life alone. He never married, although from what I gather he had his share of women. He was in the Navy. He was a recovering alcoholic. And everything he owned was in this house.
Jasen's grandfather assumed he would take care of his brother's estate, and wanted to find a will. He asked me to help. When I got to the house there was blood on the counter and carpet. He'd suffered respiratory failure, and didn't have anyone looking after him to call for help. He crawled to the phone three days after not being able to move his legs.
This man chose to live a solitary life. I only met him once, and the first think he said was how "fat" my husband had gotten. But I can't help but feel sorry for an 80-year-old man, bleeding and crawling to the phone to ask his partially estranged brother for help. He died five days later in an ICU filled with people on the verge of life and death.
When I arrived at the hospital he was still in the bed, covered with a sheet. There are no doors in the ICU, and he was the first bed on the left. Everyone entering and exiting the ICU walked past this dead man, his life barely out of his hands. And I'm assuming most people had no idea. It happens every day.
I reached his home and searched through his bills, gathering accounts to cancel and services to disconnect. I looked in closets, trying to find a file cabinet or safe that could hold his wishes.
The safe was in a utility closet, sitting atop an old coffee table and under a box with a piece of green outdoor carpet inside.
It took me two hours to find the key. I looked in shoe boxes in the closet, and found veteran papers, love letters, Christmas cards, even a picture of his father lying in his coffin after he shot himself in the family's garage. There was ancient jewelry, presumably his mothers and antique cuff links. A sack of gold coins, Christmas decorations and newspaper clippings of obituaries.
Desk drawers, end tables, dresser drawers; they were all filled with the junk we place in our lives. A deck of cards and old dice. Dog tags from his service. Pictures of an old lover on every mirror and on the phone receiver. Manuals for every piece of appliance thinkable. Dirty magazines. Faded shirts. Vinyl records. Spare change and pocket knives. Things that represented everyday life; pain and happiness.
The key was tucked away in the back of some random drawer.
His safe held his most important documents. Cash from overpaid taxes that he never deposited and never spent. His mother's will. His brother's death certificate. A pocket watch and belt buckle. Diamond rings and pearl necklaces meant for women he never married. And under it all sat an old white envelope with "last will and testament" written on the front in his unsteady handwriting.
There was a piece of paper with the grave plot information. The will was simple. He left everything to a random nephew. Jasen's grandfather's job was done. His brother wanted him to do nothing when he died.
It seemed odd to me that this man left everything he had to a single nephew, but people do strange things every day.
What's haunting my mind now that I've had time to think about my day is what this man left behind. Paid bills from 20 years ago. Dusty gallons of Jim Beam. Old clothes. Old jewelry. Older furniture. A Buick sitting in his parking space. Things that have no sentimental value to anyone except him. And now he's lying in the morgue. His body is all that is physically left. And empty shell.
Did this man leave nothing behind? He lived his entire life alone, and in these last years didn't leave his home much. These possessions will end up at the estate sale or in some pawn shop or some thrift store, looking for a new home. Looking for a new meaning; a new spot in someone else's drawer.
I sit on my couch and wonder what someone would think of me if I died tomorrow and they had to search my home, trying to find out what I'd wanted. I wonder what people would think of my now-divorced parents love letters to each other. The photos of family. The old clothes I can't come to part with. The paintings my grandmother created. I wonder if someone could ever know what these possessions meant to me; what memories they evoke.
I know this man left more behind than what was in that townhome. He left memories in other people's minds, he left a mark on people's lives. But in the end, only a very select few of us leave any tangible evidence that we ever existed. Successful writers, artists, politicians, maybe. But the average person living their average life in their average townhome? That average person, made from the miracle of human existence, leaves nothing.
I carried my toddler son up the steps to his bedroom tonight and I couldn't help but think of this man, 77 years ago, in his mother's arms. What did she hope for him? Is she proud of what he became? I know I will leave something for my son. Hopefully I will leave memories. But if I died tomorrow, would he remember my face 10 years from now? Would he remember our time together? I don't think so. I don't think he would ever know how much I love him, and that's the worst thought that's ever entered my mind.
Hopefully I will live long enough for my son to have endless memories. And with any luck my son will have children, and that small genetic link to me will continue. But I don't know what mark, if any, I will leave on this world. I don't know what purpose I'm here to fulfill.
I do know that I want the sum of my life to be more than what's in my home. I want the sum of my life to mean something to someone other than myself. I want the sum of my life to have met it's purpose.