I wonder how the husband reacted to this… 

ELMIRA, N.Y. (AP) — A woman who was quick with the bargains at her rummage sale mistakenly accepted 50 cents for a ceramic turtle with the ashes of her husband’s previous wife inside.

Now, Anita Lewis is desperately searching for the buyer who said she planned to use the urn as a cookie jar.

Lewis said she had hauled items into her yard early Saturday while her husband slept. The buyer quickly selected the large turtle container, despite being unable to get the lid open.

From This Article 

I think for most of us, things like this would signal that maybe it’s time to let go.  Who knows if the woman did it on purpose, consciously or subconsciously, but I would imagine it’s difficult to live in the shadow of another woman’s turtle.

When someone dies, we so often turn them into a saint, set up shrines, and hang on to them even tighter than we did in life.  But then I’ve also found that we hang on to the living sometimes more enthusiastically than we should.  What’s so wrong about letting go and moving on?

I’ll confess I’m not a packrat, and most of the ‘memory’ type things I have, I keep not because they mean much to me, but because they mean something to other people.  If it was up to me, I think I’d just shred the lot.

We cling to the past, but why?   Why is it so important to send a Christmas card to someone we knew in High School, attend reunions, watch retrospectives, plan memorials, and so on and so on and so on.

I think it’s high time we all set those turtles free.  I hope and pray that when I die, I DO end up as someone’s cookie jar.  In fact, I can’t think of anything better.

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