Stories lost, and found.

In the galaxy of stories that is humanity, each of us orbits among the other stars of our home constellations, spinning our yarns into the thread of our story and weaving it into the vast, complex spiral.  Some weave tightly, close to other stars, warming each other, bending each others trajectories - some soar alone through the gaps and along the rim.

When a story-teller ends, when the flame sputters to its end, the constellation changes shape, and memories begin to fade and fragment.  The once tightly ordered solar system becomes a debris field to be swept up by others - or ignored and forgotten.

Though the once bright fire has been extinguished, there are still sparks and embers to be found that can tell of the glories that were, and keep some chapters, paragraphs, or even just a few phrases of the story, alive in other orbits.

Sifting through such a debris field can be joyful and utterly melancholy in the same minutes.  A dusty hoard of old cards and letters will reveal traces of dreams and nightmares, and hopes fulfilled or dashed, or even a squirrel-cache of notes or coins. A hidden diary or box of letters may reveal a surprising, even shocking, turn of events or emotions that had never been revealed before.

Carefully ordered craft cupboards, work-benches, and garden sheds have changed from places of purposeful resources to mere piles of souvenirs, as the family archaeologists assess, evaluate, allocate, or discard.

Yet, as we sort, each object still carries faint vibrations or echoes of its original task in the long story that has now ended.   A single photograph can bring all work to a stop, as the memories awaken, and a part of the story is called forth and handed around to be savoured and cherished at least one last time.  A special cup or teapot from childhood visits, long ago, or the hand-made apron that allowed the visitor to join in the work at the kitchen table, and the searcher is back in the early days of their own story.

And so the severed threads can be woven into another part of the great tapestry, continuing a weave and weft that may have been handed on over many generations. Souvenirs are often found that tell of lives generations past - artefacts that have been gathered in other long ago expeditions to other darkened stars.  We are fortunate, who can sit with friends and family, amid the tears and the laughter, and dwell again in the golden age of childhood that such fragments evoke.

As well as nostalgia, there is the carefully preserved evidence of a world that no longer exists, and we remember how much has changed even in the course of our own lifetimes, let alone in the lives of those who came not so many decades before us. It often yields clues that allow the investigator to chart and date the beginning of the decline that precedes most ends, and offers all sorts of little lessons in ways that life can be lived, and enjoyed, and managed, and endured.  Those of us who can embark on such expeditions are fortunate, for so many stories end suddenly, catastrophically, or even intentionally, and final chapters are left unwritten, or erased.

Look around your constellation - cherish your stories and theirs; they can so easily be lost forever.