I was invited over to a friend’s place to dig through some records. His father had died of dementia recently, and he had invited a bunch of guys over to dig through the collection, to give us first crack at it.

The collection was vast, and while the paper sleeves weren’t in the best condition, the records were all in pretty decent shape. Definitely playable. The collection had a ton of jazz and R&B, and a lot of big names and a LOT of not-so-well known ones.

There’s something about estate sales, and open houses, that expose a little-examined fact. We are welcoming other people’s stuff into our home. Their keepsakes are our decoration, their playthings our decor. In this case, their music is now mine, and I took a minute to recognize what that meant.

On the surface, it’s just a transfer of ownership. A “this was yours, now it is mine.” But you’d know if, say, you were keeping something associated with a bad memory or something that used to belong to a person you don’t want in your life. On the other side of the coin, you’d welcome a memoir of someone you loved, or someone with whom you made a good memory.

As I go through these records, I will say a prayer of thanks and a note of reverence for those who have come before and those who made this possible.