I want an armoire. At least, I think I want an armoire. I keep looking at them on-line in the neighborhood marketplace comparing the age, the size, the utility. I had come across a wardrobe years ago in an antique store, but I overthought it and passed on its purchase. It had been perfect – an old art deco motif, with smells of cedar or maybe just the past, its full-length mirror on the inside right door, with shelves and hooks throughout. My budget was too tight then to afford it. I don’t think I even knew how I would get it into my small house, but the thought of it never left me. I wondered where it had been and if the owner had straightened her flapper dress, adjusted her pearls, or caught her reflection while walking past on the way to her Hollywood debut. I wondered why someone could give it up, even if it wasn’t theirs originally. Now, with the ability to see anything anyone wants to sell at any time of day or night, I realize people part with amazingly beautiful objects and ask for very little in exchange.

It struck me the level of care people gave to what they kept. I was shocked at the ceremonial painting over wood that could not be replicated in today’s furniture or of the armoires butchered to make way for a television or modified for desks, paperwork, or art supplies. The value of antique, French or Dutch, most likely past down from prior generations were marked down, sometimes just to have someone – anyone – remove the heavy object from their upstairs. “Downsizing,” the comment would say. Pictures taken in garages or driveways. The woodwork on some pieces seemed in pristine condition, but their use was sadly of no value.

Pictures filled my phone of other once valued collectibles. Dollhouses, figurines, fine China, dozens and dozens of teacups. Teacups, their provenance revered in my own upbringing, were on sale in bulk, displayed in virtual rummage sale style posts. My mind drifted to thoughts of my own paternal grandmother who hand painted China as a basement business in the 1950’s. Her art graced four settings my mother had proudly displayed in our kitchen. For my entire life, my mother would recite how they were in safekeeping to be handed down someday to the next generation. An entire shelf of my mother’s China cabinet had been filled with my maternal grandmother’s lifelong collection of teacups, including those brought back from Japan by my uncle during his World War II Asian tour. The teacups always kept company in the same cabinet with my mother’s never used Waterford wine glasses and her grandmother’s serving platters. I studied the images on my phone and felt my heart sink a bit.

It was not the value that people were assigning to objects or their disrespect. Admittedly, I don’t have a display of Hummels or Llardo porcelain figurines in my home. I can understand time passes and one only has so much space, but I knew the liquidations were not being made by the generations that had been overjoyed to afford beautiful collections or built-to-last furniture. I recalled my father-in-law watching his children divide and box up his lifelong possessions before he moved to assisted living. Astounded, he wondered why no one wanted a crystal wine decanter given to him and his wife as a wedding gift which they had only used once or twice due to its preciousness.

Things, I tell myself. They are only things. People cannot take things with them everywhere they go. How silly to assign a thing a level of importance that takes up personal space for an entire life. To make things have such a meaning that would cause pain or tears if they had ever been broken or misused during the owner’s lifetime is somehow lost in the $20 bin of on-line marketing. Few things last forever, and impermanence is true for galaxies, let alone humans. But a voice deeper inside me sighs and cries a little. It is the final resting place of generations somehow forgotten when their life’s souvenirs are sold or worse, pitched.

I know I am not the only one who feels the pangs of the past and the weight of generational guardianship. I know why Debbie Reyolds bought costumes that the film studios were throwing out. It wasn’t for profit. It was because she knew, or maybe she felt, how beautiful they all were. She understood their history and was amazed at the dismissal of their importance. As much as we hate it, things do have meaning. They mark who we are, who we want to be, who we have been. It connects us to the past and to imaginings of brighter days. Materialism is not a fabulous ideal, but humans will just find something else to collect be it pictures of their best meal, charging cables, warped records, or massed produced phones. Maybe hanging on to a useless piece of beautiful furniture that had been in a family’s home for generations is less valuable to some. But it isn’t the thing. It’s the meaning. It is the nod to the passing generations that were once vibrant and proud.

I still don’t think I will be able to fit an armoire in my house as much as I dreamt I would like to. I fell in love with the 1920’s more than the furniture adorning it. For now, I will stop scrolling the neighborhood sales feeds and, instead, clear out a place to make room for some teacups to go with that crystal decanter. Life is short but seeing joy and beauty through the eyes of those you love is truly timeless and very, very precious.