We should each create a History Box.

How do you want to be remembered?

Most of us leave only scattered reminders -- photos in an album, remembered conversations (remembered only for a while), maybe old home movies, usually poorly-recorded and watched by pretty much no one. In other words, nothing that captures, for future generations, the really important things about us: what we valued, what we learned.

And yet most of us have treasured possessions that bring back, in vivid detail, moments that define us. Medals from a war. Pressed flowers in a scrapbook that evoke, for us, a special time.
I knew a lady who kept a lock of her husband's hair under glass; she'd given him a haircut the very day he was killed by a drunken driver. I knew a man who kept a stone in his pocket that he'd picked up on the summit of Long's Peak, one of Colorado's tallest mountains, on his eightieth birthday. (For the record, I haven't made that trip up, and I'm younger than that!) I have a helmet from Viet Nam with a bullet hole through it: a reminder of not how brave I was but how lucky. These are all things we would like to pass on to our descendants, maybe with a note in our own handwriting, saying why they are/were important to us.

Some people save letters -- from family, friends, old lovers, their kids -- while others hang onto seemingly silly stuff -- a crushed snow cone cup from a first date, a four-leaf clover -- that summon up cherished memories. Others go to great expense to have treasured mementos mounted professionally: a big rainbow trout or a piece of grandma's wedding lace. And what about that bowling trophy? Remember that night when you and your team ruled supreme?

So, given that we all have "stuff" that means something to us -- actual items, like coins or stamps or a certain doll -- wouldn't it be logical, and somehow reassuring, to be able to pack them in a box, maybe with a written account of what's there and why, and pass them on? Sort of like a time capsule, but one of our own design, and meant not for a community but for our family.

A History Box.

After all, what we all want, ultimately, is to be remembered, to be appreciated for who we are or were. I put my time in on this earth, we'd like to say to those not yet born, and I had my triumphs and my disappointments. I'm putting in this box some of the things that were special to me. They may not look like much to you, but, taken together, they evoke a whole life. Mine.

So how big should the box be? That depends. It might be small enough to contain only a few old coins or a ring or two or a key to a safety deposit box where you've stored deeds to oil leases that may have come to fruition or other accounts someone might want to empty. It might be some old photos. On the other hand, it might be big enough to house the writings you could never get published but that you're sure were good and might even prove important someday.

I have a friend, a talented writer, who has printed out all his unpublished novels -- a dozen or more -- and has bound them in binders. If some grandchild or great-grandchild should end up an English major, interested in literature, what a find that would be! My great-grandfather wrote all those novels, and no one told me about it? Hello? Some of this stuff is really good!

He might need a big box. But still no bigger than carry-on luggage. Worth preserving? I think so. Worth someone hauling from house to house until someone down the line wants to look at it? Come on: you're taking lots of stuff less valuable, right?

In the meantime, whatever size box you choose, entrust it to someone in your family -- there's always one, God bless him or her -- who will take care of it, be sure it's preserved and passed down. Do you want it opened at a certain date? Or do you just want it held until that curious great-grandchild asks about and decides to open it? Until they have to blow dust off of it and say, "What's this? Let's open it!"

Any kind of box will do. Cardboard is fine. Just have it sealed when you depart this earth, and include instructions on top as to how you want it handled and stored. And then hope for the best. What you've put into this box is a capsule of who you were.

Your History Box.

Isn't that better than leaving it all to chance? You bet it is!