Detritus of a Life Well Lived

David Renfroe
9/5/2010
While sifting through the remains of my mom’s and dad’s life, I am struck by the little that is left; a few trinkets that have value to me because they remind me of happy childhood days, some pictures, and scraps of paper that may reflect on their thoughts and feelings providing a window into their lives. As Tevyev reflects as he leaves Anatevka, there is only “a little bit of this, a little bit of that.” All else is deteriorating back to the dust from which it came just like their bodies. I suppose that I am lucky in some ways that as they are dying slowly I am allowed to ponder each item as I try and preserve what is there to attempt to solidify for generations to come who they were.
But alas, my efforts are in vain even in the modern age of storing data and pictures on platinum disks; it will surely be swamped in the flood of data that will come. Humanity’s efforts have always tried to hang on to the ephemeral as if to try and stop time and prevent change and stave off the oblivion of the future when all memories are lost. Who is remembered after only a few generations; only the pharaohs and kings, but never the hands who built their kingdoms, had their children, and fought their wars?
As a child I thought the present would never change. Growing up, becoming a parent, growing old were foreign ideas. The present provided security and change brought fear. I remember perceiving the movement of time and growing older. Birthdays were welcomed without thinking of the consequences. Times change. Childhood homes, friends, and relatives disappear in the distance of time and return to the dust from which they came. What was once a house of concrete and stone, a venerable fortress to the mind of the child, grows old, deteriorates, and crumbles like paper. Nothing is permanent. Nothing of this earth is eternal.
Why then do we have these yearnings for the eternal? Why do we attempt to build eternal structures? The enmity and pride of those who have reigned with blood and horror have attempted to cheat death and the ever plodding grist mill of time with their pyramids, sphinx, Colossus of Rhodes, the Tower of Babel only to have them and those who built them to die with only an occasional dead shone to testify of their existence. No other creature on earth perceives itself and desires to be remembered or to attempt to remember others.
Is this not a testament of our eternal nature? Are we not descended from an eternal realm and desire for eternal things? Certainly the natural, deteriorating man is an enemy to these eternal things. We have been instructed in the scriptures “that moth and rust doth corrupt” these earthly things and to not put our trust in them. All things we build are but temporary and built from paper to be blown away and forgotten just like us.
However, how wonderful is the gospel of Jesus Christ that teaches that were are to preserve in remembrance our fathers lest he “smite the earth with a curse.” How useless would the earth have been, if we are all lost to memory? How interesting it is that we are required to learn of and work for each of our ancestors. Certainly, we learn who they are and yearn for their company in the future as we must have watched them years before. Our hearts are knit together into one interconnected afghan of the family that will bring the truths of the gospel to all the earth, past, present, and future. Only this gospel provides such a beautiful breadth and depth for all of humanity. It feels like it is true.
God knows it ought to be true. The Spirit doesn’t whisper but shouts in my heart that it is true.