Gone

It seems too easy to destroy.
I think of a tree.  It may have stood for 200 years and with one cut it is gone.  It is not like it can be replaced in an instant.  In the Iraqi war, there was a huge emphasis on getting back the artefacts that had been taken from the museum.  In wars in general buildings are destroyed that may have stood for millennia.  In a moment they are gone.  9/11 saw buildings brought down.  The loss of human life was terrible.  Buildings were lost too.  It took years to come up with a suitable replacement.
A person may or may or not agree with the reasons for the destruction of something, but to me, once something is gone it is gone.  It is irreplaceable.  Sure there may be something that does the same thing, but it is not the original.  It is probably why there is such a market for early things.  The first car, the first bike, the first playing cards, the first anything really.  Original is desirable.  For some things though, it is important to burn bridges – but not for all things.
It is a long story that will not be gone into now, but we inherited stuff from a house in North Queensland.  Some of the stuff was over 100 years old.  There was two of something.  We broke one.  It is gone.  Long ago I had four very fine coloured glasses a person drinks from.  Now there are three.  The fourth is gone. 
Regretting it does no good.  As they say, it is no good crying over spilt milk.  The best I try to do, is learn from the experience, so it does not happen again. 
What I have learned, is not to get rid of some things.  Rubbish I will always get rid of.   Stuff that was good once, maybe again, and that is the stuff I find an out of the way place for.  Who knows, in 10 years’ time, it may be important to me again.  If it is gone it is gone.  I have no option but to start again.  I guess I’m into having options.
A lot of the things I keep, others are not into.  I am, so they matter to me.  In our home we keep something that is beautiful, useful or joyful.  It does not mean we keep a million of them.  What we don’t need we give to charity, as perhaps someone else needs what we have.
Among other things Merril is into sewing and art.  I’m not.  I am however into stamps.  She is not.   For one stamp collection I got, I kept everything before finding out if it was important.  I so did not want to find out something mattered, and I just did not know.  Once it is gone it is gone.  Dad’s tools I kept.  Old picture frames I kept. 
For our own collections, the above jointly applies.  Among other things, we are both into music and the garden.  I heard recently that three of something represents a collection.  We have more than three types of roses, grevilleas and fruit trees.  We have heaps of music albums.
Although if we are gone, we will have no say in the matter, I hope for the receiver of our stuffs sake, nothing will be taken to the dump without real consideration.  Regrets are hard to live with. 
Once it is gone, it is gone.