Carol left her bag and a jacket on a bench in the Lobby of our Condo and forgot them in the rush to check our mail boxes (personal and the Association’s). An hour later she remembered where they must be and when she returned to the scene, they were gone.  This is about possessions. It is how they own us at times and make us crazy.  Carol was highly upset and was berating herself but I tried to make light of it by using our mantra – It is only possessions – we weren’t hurt and there is nothing that cannot be replaced.  Poor sympathy, but it is true. By the next day, most of the contents of her purse were replaced but she was out the money and the contents of her appointment book which took some doing to replicate – which she did!  Losing the Gore-Tex jacket hurt the most.  But getting her driver’s license and phone replaced as well as stopping all her cards proved to be easily accomplished including getting two new braces made for her wrists at the new digs of Dr. J. Dennis.  We also got the lock re-keyed and the episode is over.  Our possessions were basically replaced and we owned them again – not the thief who just scooped up the purse and the jacket and disappeared.  We discovered that such thefts are common and many people said: “When that happened to me…” and went into great detail how one can get replacements and alert authorities so that the miscreants really could not benefit by the credit cards, hospitalization and other papers which would be meaningless.  By the end of Wednesday night her appointment book, addresses and most other important information were recreated.  She may have forgotten the two items but her energy and imagination erased most of the hurt that slip caused.

But this is about possessions.  I really do believe that some of us are owned by what we think we possess.  Actually, we are temporary care-takers of materials that their creators produced and the middle-men who sold them to the retailers who then passed them on to us.  What we possess really cannot be quantified in terms of the cost of the jewelry, technical marvels or clothing and other things we want so much.

“He who steals my purse steals trash” begins a famous saying and this is true.  A good name really is far more preferred to the piles of goods with which we could bedeck ourselves to show how much we own or can afford.  What we really need is an occupation or hobby that will do some good in the world and help others. Losing possessions is just that.  They can be replaced and often, if as lucky as we were, ours were taken care of by the hard work of Carol.  I just went along as the driver since her license and keys were missing.  But now, she is in charge, once again, and is in the driver’s seat. We both divested ourselves of most of our possessions when we moved from a 9 room house to a two bedroom apartment.

We found that management of what we possessed is quite different from being inundated with “things” that no one except us would want after we are gone.