Thrift Shop (not the song, though the song is great)

I've grown up frequenting thrift shops.  When I was little my cousins and I would go with my grandma and play with all the toys and maybe buy a game missing a few pieces or a stuffed animal (I still remember the funny smell of my stuffed Shamu) while my grandma would be looking though all the nick-nacks and lamps.  When I was older, in my quirky weird girl stage, I would go for the clothes.  I loved the bright floral 60's print dresses and itchy polyester shirts and the wide legged pants and the acid washed jeans.  My closet smelled of thrift store and I once was shunned by a boyfriend all day because I wore a chicken dress to school.  A dress with chickens all over it.  When I grew tired of trying to define my individuality through my clothes I would go for the books.  Oh, the books.  I would read every single title, pick them up and feel them, fan through the pages so I could smell the history in these books.  I loved imagining the previous owner sitting in a park reading, growing teary eyed at all the right parts, staying up late to get through the climax, and sighing with the finishing of the last sentence.  So yeah, thrift shops and I have a history.

The other day I stopped by a thrift store hoping to find a piece of art for our bare walls.  I went in and walked to the back where all the household items were.  Browsing through the usual thrift store items, I was suddenly (and very unexpectedly) in tears.  I saw a picture frame with the picture of a young girl still in it, a hand made sign saying "Grandma Beth's Kitchen", a journal with a note inside, "for John".  I pictured my grandma's things here, where inevitably they may well end up.  Isn't it weird to mourn for someone through things?  But these things become a part of the person.  These things they touched every day, or used on special occasions or hung on their walls or cherished.  My grandma, to me, was her coffee mugs.  She was her barn pictures.  She was her piles of mystery books in paper bags that she had stacked in her spare room.  She was her lamps.  She was her gardening shears.  She was so much and I know that things aren't important, that the memories are what to hold onto but damn it, at that moment I wanted to hoard it all. 

Driving home I thought about the things I will leave behind.  When I die, what will be dropped off at the closest thrift shop?  What will end up cherished by my family, my friends?  Will anything leave a lingering effect on those who knew me?  Or will it all be junk?