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2026 52 Card Project: Week 29: Erasure
Jul. 24th, 2026 12:07 pm[Sorry, another melancholy collage. Consider yourself warned.]
I remember a story I read years ago that I have never forgotten, which has haunted me ever since, and I wish I had thought to note the title and the author, because I would love to read it again. The story was very simple: a humble laborer of some sort went to bed and died in his sleep. Was he a peasant farmer? A stone mason? I do not remember. He had no children, and no other family, and so when his body was found, the funeral was simple, and his effects were quickly dispersed. No major ripples in his community. What was his name? I don't remember it either, and that bothers me. Let us call him John Williamson.
Cut to twelve years later, and the scene turns to a gathering at a local inn, where a group of friends has gathered to while away a rainy winter's night by telling stories and downing a few brews. One man remembers a tale of a summer afternoon doing--what? Building a barn? Bringing in a harvest? I don't remember that either. "It was me, and Richard here, and oh yes, John Williamson; do you remember him? Good old John Williamson, the summer before he died." He goes on to finish his tale and brings his mug to his lips. "How we all laughed about it! John was always good for a laugh."
And that, the narrator tells us chillingly in the next paragraph was the last time any human on this earth remembered and spoke the name of John Williamson aloud.
Cut forward fifty years. There is an abandoned church, with broken cupboards containing parish records that have been damaged with mildew. There is a book with the records of baptisms, but they are all but illegible from the damp. There is a storm, and lightning strikes the church, and the roof begins to burn. The narrator recounts the progress of the fire, telling us, moment by moment how the fire creeps closer to the cupboard, and breaches it, and then the book begins to burn.
When the fire has burned itself out, the church is gone. The cupboard is gone. The book of parish records, the last place where John Williamson's name was written, is now entirely ash.
All record and memory of John Williamson has disappeared. And no one even notices.
This is the theme of the movie Coco: the slow progression of human history that forgets the people who were once here, who once mattered but now are not even remembered. The group Disturbed wrote a song riffing about this, "Hold On to Memories." The chorus goes, in part:
This past week, I gathered up several boxes full of old, decrepit computer cords, peripherals, hardware, cables, phones, tablets, and laptops and brought them to Best Buy to be decommissioned and recycled. Some were so old that they could not even turn on. I worried a bit about these, but the tech assured me they would all be destroyed and recycled. I managed to erase the one working tablet back to factory reset. But the laptops I turned over and asked them to be reformatted so that all the data was gone.
I had checked them before I brought them in; of course I did. There were the records of the freelancing marketing business I started when I was fired from the law firm. There were a few videos of the girls that I transferred to my own computer. There were some of our family portraits--luckily, I knew I already had copies on my own computer. There were our tax records from ten years ago.
There, on Rob's last laptop, were his Caringbridge draft posts, and his PET scan reports, the pictures of his teeth that he took because he was thinking of getting dental work done, and the last letters he drafted.
I know that when computer equipment is decommissioned, it is important to protect your digital footprint for security purposes. Erase it all, I told the tech. I have what I need.
I remember a youth meeting at my church where our youth pastor sat us down and had us contemplate a truth that most people manage to ignore most of the time: I want you to sit and think for a while about the fact that everyone in this room is going to die someday.
I remember an article I read once that approached it from another angle: A little over a hundred years from now, everyone you know will be gone. Some of the things that they treasured the most may be passed down to family, but much of it will end up in the hands of strangers.
I have been to estate sales and walked through vintage stores, and I have contemplated the things that people have left behind because they do not need them anymore. They are not there anymore to care.
I gave up the computer equipment. I gave up Rob's last laptop. I let it go. I have told the girls many times that I have no intention of leaving a heavy burden of stuff behind for them, as Rob left for me.
I came home both comforted by the fact that I have four boxes less of stuff in the house that I am not using--and feeling wretched that I have to keep letting go of him, erasing the last traces of him in the world, over and over again.
[Compare this collage: Object Permanence.]
Image description: Upper half: a weathered statue of a bare-chested, bald man with a beard, like a figure of antiquity, sits on a table, looking contemplatively at an open laptop on the table beside him. The laptop looks as though it is made of weatherbeaten stone. A red 'DELETE' key is directly below the keyboard of the laptop. Lower half: several open laptops sit at various angles scattered around on a work table, with power cords scattered carelessly around them.
Erasure
Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
I remember a story I read years ago that I have never forgotten, which has haunted me ever since, and I wish I had thought to note the title and the author, because I would love to read it again. The story was very simple: a humble laborer of some sort went to bed and died in his sleep. Was he a peasant farmer? A stone mason? I do not remember. He had no children, and no other family, and so when his body was found, the funeral was simple, and his effects were quickly dispersed. No major ripples in his community. What was his name? I don't remember it either, and that bothers me. Let us call him John Williamson.
Cut to twelve years later, and the scene turns to a gathering at a local inn, where a group of friends has gathered to while away a rainy winter's night by telling stories and downing a few brews. One man remembers a tale of a summer afternoon doing--what? Building a barn? Bringing in a harvest? I don't remember that either. "It was me, and Richard here, and oh yes, John Williamson; do you remember him? Good old John Williamson, the summer before he died." He goes on to finish his tale and brings his mug to his lips. "How we all laughed about it! John was always good for a laugh."
And that, the narrator tells us chillingly in the next paragraph was the last time any human on this earth remembered and spoke the name of John Williamson aloud.
Cut forward fifty years. There is an abandoned church, with broken cupboards containing parish records that have been damaged with mildew. There is a book with the records of baptisms, but they are all but illegible from the damp. There is a storm, and lightning strikes the church, and the roof begins to burn. The narrator recounts the progress of the fire, telling us, moment by moment how the fire creeps closer to the cupboard, and breaches it, and then the book begins to burn.
When the fire has burned itself out, the church is gone. The cupboard is gone. The book of parish records, the last place where John Williamson's name was written, is now entirely ash.
All record and memory of John Williamson has disappeared. And no one even notices.
This is the theme of the movie Coco: the slow progression of human history that forgets the people who were once here, who once mattered but now are not even remembered. The group Disturbed wrote a song riffing about this, "Hold On to Memories." The chorus goes, in part:
And hold on to memoriesSee the video of the song here.
Hold on to every moment to keep them alive
The world's greatest tragedy
Souls who are not remembered cannot survive
This past week, I gathered up several boxes full of old, decrepit computer cords, peripherals, hardware, cables, phones, tablets, and laptops and brought them to Best Buy to be decommissioned and recycled. Some were so old that they could not even turn on. I worried a bit about these, but the tech assured me they would all be destroyed and recycled. I managed to erase the one working tablet back to factory reset. But the laptops I turned over and asked them to be reformatted so that all the data was gone.
I had checked them before I brought them in; of course I did. There were the records of the freelancing marketing business I started when I was fired from the law firm. There were a few videos of the girls that I transferred to my own computer. There were some of our family portraits--luckily, I knew I already had copies on my own computer. There were our tax records from ten years ago.
There, on Rob's last laptop, were his Caringbridge draft posts, and his PET scan reports, the pictures of his teeth that he took because he was thinking of getting dental work done, and the last letters he drafted.
I know that when computer equipment is decommissioned, it is important to protect your digital footprint for security purposes. Erase it all, I told the tech. I have what I need.
I remember a youth meeting at my church where our youth pastor sat us down and had us contemplate a truth that most people manage to ignore most of the time: I want you to sit and think for a while about the fact that everyone in this room is going to die someday.
I remember an article I read once that approached it from another angle: A little over a hundred years from now, everyone you know will be gone. Some of the things that they treasured the most may be passed down to family, but much of it will end up in the hands of strangers.
I have been to estate sales and walked through vintage stores, and I have contemplated the things that people have left behind because they do not need them anymore. They are not there anymore to care.
I gave up the computer equipment. I gave up Rob's last laptop. I let it go. I have told the girls many times that I have no intention of leaving a heavy burden of stuff behind for them, as Rob left for me.
I came home both comforted by the fact that I have four boxes less of stuff in the house that I am not using--and feeling wretched that I have to keep letting go of him, erasing the last traces of him in the world, over and over again.
[Compare this collage: Object Permanence.]
Image description: Upper half: a weathered statue of a bare-chested, bald man with a beard, like a figure of antiquity, sits on a table, looking contemplatively at an open laptop on the table beside him. The laptop looks as though it is made of weatherbeaten stone. A red 'DELETE' key is directly below the keyboard of the laptop. Lower half: several open laptops sit at various angles scattered around on a work table, with power cords scattered carelessly around them.
Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
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