There is a photograph in almost every family that nobody particularly likes. The lighting is dreadful, somebody has their eyes closed and the person who took it managed to cut off the top of someone’s head. Yet the photograph survives every clear-out. Expensive furniture disappears, whole collections are given away, but this miserable little print goes back into the drawer.
We keep it because the people in it were once gathered in one place. That may never happen again. The photograph is evidence that an ordinary afternoon occurred, and that we belonged to it. The bad lighting has nothing to do with its value.
I think we make an enormous mistake when we imagine that a life can be measured through the quality of its possessions or the neatness of its achievements. Look at the things people hesitate over when moving house. The chipped mug from a holiday. A ticket from a concert that wasn’t even particularly good. A child’s drawing which, if we’re going to be strict about artistic standards, has little to recommend it. These objects have become witnesses.
The trouble comes when the witnesses start taking over the house. We can hold on to so many versions of the past that there is no room for the present. Every shelf becomes an argument against change. Keeping everything is often presented as devotion; discarding anything can feel like betrayal. Neither response necessarily honours the person or the experience involved.
Perhaps the useful question is what we actually want to preserve. The thing itself? The person? A story we don’t want forgotten? Sometimes a photograph is enough. Sometimes we need to tell someone what happened, while there is still someone alive who remembers the answer. And sometimes the object has done its work. We can thank it, quite privately, and let it go.
I wouldn’t trust a philosophy of living that demanded a spotless house and no sentimental clutter. I wouldn’t trust one that required us to remain surrounded by everything we’ve ever owned, either. We need a little space for remembering and a little space for becoming someone we haven’t been before.
Keep the awful photograph if you want to. But perhaps write the names on the back. One day the names will matter more than whether the picture was any good.