He was on the phone with another movie exec when I entered the apartment, which had been stripped bare except for a bed on wheels and bulletin board. A few borrowed chairs in oddly painted colors completed the scene.

His friend was explaining he’d have no further use for his various awards and gold records. I can make a few calls, he said. See if I can get you fifty dollars.

Fifty dollars? The sum overwhelmed me. I thought of how I’d converted the gold records to art, carefully pasting citations on the back of the frames, so the provenance would last. So the frames would last. So they’d be donated, sold, inherited, auctioned off. Maybe a few would land in museums.

While our energy assumes new forms, the pictures would survive, looking very much as they look in this empty apartment, unaffected by the march of time. Not sure how I feel about this. Perhaps it validates my efforts to preserve, inform, and cherish. I suppose in some way it gives meaning to my existence as a curator. And I imagine somewhere down the line, someone will say, thank you Aunt Dale, for your stewardship.