I like the idea of loving others the way the Bible describes love, but in real life, my reluctance to engage with strangers makes me an introvert. Loving someone I don’t know, someone I will never see again, stretches beyond my sensibilities.

Yet on a certain day, years ago, I met a woman I will never forget. My husband said as we left the woman’s antique store on 6th Street in Amarillo, “You really chatted that woman up. I’ve never known you to do that. She must have reminded you of someone. Your aunt?”

He meant my Aunt Joyce, my mother’s sister, who I called “Auntie.”

“No. Aunt Julia, maybe.”

Aunt Julia was a hoarder. And according to my mom and Auntie, Aunt Julia was a thief. When their mother died at age 26, Aunt Julia, their uncle’s second wife, took possession of my grandmother’s pink depression glass cake plate and hid it for decades. She grabbed other items as well, but the cake plate became emblematic.

Browsing antique stores, I wonder as I wander who owned all this before it landed here? How many times have these items changed hands?

As someone who loves old things and attaches sentiment to items that once belonged to someone I love, it’s hard to pass up a good antique shop. Things can represent attachments to people, times, or places. I’d like to think something I find, use or treasure can be passed to someone I love when I’m gone.

But it wasn’t that the woman reminded me of someone as much as this woman reminded me of something. Something important. Like a sign flashing, “Don’t forget this.”

Seeing People Instead of Things

The woman had seen my husband and me looking through the window, reading the sign on the door that said, “Moving.” She stepped outside. When I asked her where she was moving, she didn’t know yet. The 85-year-old man who owned the building was selling because his wife was in poor health.

That store keeper herself looked fragile, waif-like, wiry. That’s what reminded me of Aunt Julia, a smoker. Wandering through the woman’s store, I wondered, How can she move all this stuff? The store was crammed floor-to-ceiling with stuff, defying me to focus on any one thing amidst all the stuff.

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” she asked.

As I looked around, continuing to converse, I surveyed her inventory, hoping something would catch my eye. It was all too much. Too many choices. Just stuff. Most of it well beyond useful, lacking intrinsic value, things that could have value only to a collector who’d spent time looking for some buried treasure in a place like hers. Someone would have to dig.

Digging through the past, sometimes the hunt means more than the find.

I thought of the sled in the film Citizen Kane: “Rosebud.”

Based on the life of the famed publisher, millionaire William Randolph Hearst, the movie begins at the end of Citizen Kane’s life to show how his wealth and possessions could not fill the hole in his heart.

“Kane was one of the most controversial films ever made. Hearst, offended by his portrayal, offered RKO a small fortune to destroy the film. When that didn’t work his newspapers embarked on a campaign of defamation against [Orson] Welles, thus proving that the film’s criticism of the power and corruption of the press were precisely on target.”

IMDB

Thinking of that emblematic sled, I remembered touring the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, where a guide said there had been entire floors of buildings in New York City owned by William Randolph Hearst, where he stored museum quality items he bought. Hearst would send someone out to find something he wanted to buy, to possess, only to find out he already owned it.

“More isn’t always better, Linus. Sometimes it’s just more.”

Sabrina

Wood, hay, stubble, my mom would have said. In the end, no matter how much we value our belongings, it’s all just stuff.

Moving Days and the Movement of Time

Nothing brings into sharp focus the transitory nature of things like moving days. Next to the the importance of people, even the nicest things we possess are still just things. Of temporary and relative value, our things will one day wind up possessed by someone else.

The woman followed me as if hungry for conversation or human contact. My husband and I were the only customers in her store. “Chatting her up,” went way beyond what felt comfortable to me until I realized simply giving her time so she could talk was more important than buying something. Seeing her instead of seeing her things.

As we eased our way to exit, I spotted a crate near the door, finding among 6 or 7 books a copy of Wuthering Heights, a book I already owned.

“How much?”

“Ten dollars.” She uncrossed her arms when I handed her the money. Considering the changes ahead and difficulties she faced, I felt a wave of sadness for her.

At least I bought something before walking away, giving her one less thing to move. And she gave me a lesson in showing a kind of love to a stranger.