Auction Day

Grandma picked up the child-size iron and wiped off invisible dust when I said I planned to bid on it. I'm sure she had wiped it a dozen times before, but this time was the last. One cart full of her lifetime collection of household treasures had already been scattered among eager treasure hunters and this cart was left. There were a few large items of Grandpa's outside waiting to see where their new home would be and then they would all be gone.

Today's auction clearly proved that the possessions we spend a lifetime collecting will someday be scattered for pennies. Grandpa sat just a few blocks away, with his mind much farther away, while the farm equipment he used daily headed to other barns and even antique shops. That wooden wheelbarrow which he once used to haul hay then spent years gathering dust in the back of the hayloft now will complete its journey to rest in a gardener's yard.

My heart grew heavy when I thought about the stories behind each item being sold. The washbins where I spent hours washing sweetcorn while Grandpa cut the kernels off, Grandma steamed, and aunts and cousins husked stood in the corner and I discovered them just in time to snap a few pictures before they too were auctioned away. I rescued dad's firetruck but many of his tractors found new homes.

It's just stuff. Stuff that will rot and rust. Moths will destroy and thieves will break in and steal.

Some will spend a lifetime focused on collecting stuff to fill up houses and barns here.

I have been challenged today to spend my lifetime focused on storing up treasures to be discovered someday in a new Home where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal.