How much are we worth?

I've noticed that we have many ways to speak about money without really doing so. We say that people are well off or comfortable, that they have fallen on hard times or are struggling.There is a reticence about money and finances that belies the overall emphasis which equates worth as a person with financial status.

Somehow, the belief is afoot that the richer you are in bank account and material assets, the better a person you are.  If you are worth your salt, you have "stuff" to show for it. And God loves you more.

The schizy thing about that is the reverse: if you are poor, there is something wrong with you. If you were a moral, "good" person, you would be blessed by wealth. So obviously, being poor means that you're not in God's good graces. You're an unrepentant sinner.

Now I know that such thinking, in most circles, is not openly espoused, and is often denied outright. In fact, since it's not polite to talk about money -- or at least it didn't used to be -- most such judgments are silent, or whispered among friends. Aloud, we often hear of the nobility of character that comes with poverty: "Her house was shabby, but sparkling clean." "He had mended clothes, but worked hard to overcome his difficulties." Of course, the assumption behind such statements is that with hard work and good character, the reward will be . . . riches!

What leads me to think about such things right now is the dismantling of my mother's material world. As she prepares to move in with us, she has to pare down her belongings once again. Five years ago she owned a beautiful four bedroom home on a wooded acre. It was filled with a limetime's worth of things, collected from living in Europe for 31 years. She took only the most precious things with her to the Independent Living Community, distributing much of the antique furniture and family pieces among children and grandchildren. Now even those will have to go. She's moving into one bedroom. We already have all the dishes and furniture we can handle and then some. Many things will wind up in my sister's new house. Mom's actual belongings will be reduced to the clothes, furniture, papers, pictures and knick-knacks that will fit in her room.

When Mom's father died in 2000, at the age of 98, we took his belongings back to my aunt's house to look at and give to people who wanted them. By that time, all that was left were a couple of cardboard boxes of things and some map cases with old maps. We found his weather diary where he recorded the weather every day for years, often along with one sentence about what happened that day. There was a wooden box with various mementos --- love letters to Grandma from before they were married, his mother's wedding ring, small tools and a few pictures. His life had been full. He'd owned houses and cars and a business. But in the end, he had a box with precious reminders and little else.

I've been thinking a lot about the conditions of life and of death. I picture a baby sliding into the world, all slippery and naked and helpless --- and unknown. As that baby grows into a child and then an adult, many things come along and stick around, but in the end, no matter how the end comes about, there's not one single thing that can make the trip over. We go out with the same thing we had when we arrived. Nothing. You really and truly can't take it with you. No matter how much you accumulate, no matter how awesome your house is, or your clothes or your car, regardless of who you marry or what a great musician you are, in the end it all goes by the wayside. We slip out as we slipped in.

At that point, I hope somebody remembers me kindly. I hope there will be little reminders of my having been here --- at least for a little while. We have my Great-Grandmother Mimi's parlor chairs in our front room. They probably belonged to her father first. They're just chairs --- nice, carved, needlepoint, mid-19th century chairs, really, just furniture. What makes them special is the story of who owned them, who passed them down, the family that preserved them, the people who sat in them, the love and continuity that they represent. They could be any old chairs, but they're not. They're Mimi's chairs, and I remember Mimi.