The space between living and dying

That's the space where we build our lives. It's so run-of-the-mill, so everyday, that we tend to forget about it and yet it is what our lives boil down to when we are gone. It's not just the physical space that we occupy and call home but also the space that we occupy in people's memories. The latter weighs more heavily in my mind since without that we could disappear so easily. Physical objects and places can be removed or destroyed and all traces of a persons presence can be erased, a memory is much harder to erase - even if we want to.

We went to get furniture from a coworker of Anna's. All we had heard was that they were cleaning out an apartment and everything needed to go. When we got there we learned that the tenant of the apartment had died in an accident and their belongings were being given away to Goodwill, so there we were in this person's apartment. Most things had been moved to the living room and put into boxes for us to rummage through but there was still the semblance of a life there.

It was bleak and haunting to look through the boxes and walk through the rooms. I had no knowledge of this person's life, I didn't have any memories or associations, all I knew was the space in which they lived. There were bits and pieces that could be put together to figure out what their life must have been like, sporting equipment, cleaning products, kitchen utensils, glassware, shirts. It made me immensely sad to imagine this person's life and then realize that I'm standing in the middle of what was their life. Is that what it all boils down to, a room full of stuff that some strangers rummage through? I know it's not always like that but it just made me think how fragile the balance of our lives is, how small that space between living and dying can be.