• Family History

    Search and rescue

    My parents and I recently went on a salvage mission. My family lived abroad for much of my childhood, and as a result, many of the family heirlooms had been scattered among various relatives. We’ve slowly been reacquiring the things we’d stored with relatives when we left (for what my parents imagined would be a brief 3-year sting abroad) and accruing new bits and pieces as relatives retire and divest themselves of ancestral clutter. I use the word heirloom extremely loosely. The unfortunate truth is that much of this stuff is clutter at best. (I learned that lesson a few years ago when I helped clear out a storage unit…