A billion faceless people. There will be no ceremonial procession. No hype to build the story. These will probably diminish by time, left only as names mentioned in the past. Clothes will be discarded or donated. Some personal treasure will be traded or given away; possibly sold. Photos will become brittle and fade into shadows of what was. Few will be remembered in fifty years since passing. There might be a marker that loved ones will forget to tend; they might be forgotten altogether. Loved, by someone; forgotten still as the years cured the pain of loss; as they went away so long ago.

Sometimes, sporadically, a memory will come to light. Perhaps brought on by an image, sound, or scent of something else. A flicker of the familiar that we lost. Maybe then we will find a memento that we can touch or see in remembrance that would bring us back, however temporarily, to another time with a person that has now become faceless in our mind. We might struggle to recreate the image or emotions in our hearts, yet time has robbed us of the memory. So, we lament at the loss and make the sorrow in it our own even though it was us that failed to keep the memory alive.

Still, even as we age, we do not look toward our gift of memory. Except maybe as a monetary inheritance to be dwindled due to the lack of worth and a sense of entitlements. Land, and possibly title, may be passed on to those that come after. Yet even those will have no meaning as it was not their work of effort earned by the recipients of the gift. Memories; now shadow left in darker places. Are they now souvenirs left to tarnish in the attics of our minds? Where might a mausoleum be, that I may lay down what I am so the world might know my name in years to come and go?

A billion faceless people. I am one standing in the line that leads to an end that none of us can escape. A crowd of lost meaning; a shadow of memory that will fade. Even still, I face the guilt of letting memories sail away with the winds of time. And yet I often try to recapture some moments to ease an aging soul that does not wish to be forgotten. Oh, to reach back; to touch, see, and hear what once was then. Isn’t that what art is for? Is it there that we try to capture into timelessness what we might think as valued? Even though we know that time erodes all of men and monuments.