This story starts with 550,000, the high score on the pinball
machine I inherited from my father.
Beyond the memories we have of those who have passed away, we also
have physical tokens of their existence. Photographs of those no longer alive
are no doubt the most common (although if a photograph only exists in digital
media and never printed, you could say it's not a true physical item). But we
also have their handiwork, such as the ceramic matzoh plate my father made in
the early 90s that looks like a sheet of matzoh:
To me, some of the most emotionally resonant tokens are things
that had been handwritten by the deceased, mainly due to the uniqueness of
handwriting that has the immediacy of "This was written by the person who
no longer with us, in their own hand, holding a pen or pencil." One
example that I have is a label on a large thermos, identifiable as being from
the 70s with the orange floral pattern decorating it. It has a large white push
button on the top to dispense its contents. It is the type of thermos you find
on folding tables at something like a PTA event, used to provide coffee. In
fact, on the label is "Decaf Coffee" is written in my mother's
handwriting, a precise narrow slanted mix of cursive and block letters that far
excels the quality of my handwriting. And I'm going to disappoint you in not
showing a picture of the label with my mother's handwriting as I can't find the
thermos, somehow misplaced in the move we made four years ago. (Disappointment
#1)
