I’ve often wondered who my Great Grandma was. She was such a wonderfully sweet old lady by the time I met her, with a beautiful 3 story Victorian home in Belleville, IL, even though the 3rd floor was off limits because it had gone beyond disrepair. I can recall her house, and just the certain way it smelled, like old oak in the sun. It’s what gave me my love for Victorian houses.

She lived so far away from us that I only got to meet her a handful of times. She raised 3 sons I think solo after her husband passed. They all went to war - Korea or Vietnam. She passed away when I was 12. I often wonder what it was like for her living widowed, raising her children during that time. Sadly, any letters or artifacts she may have had from that period are long gone.

It is with this thought that I had the revelation that, perhaps our descendants will have an easier time discovering who we were. The fediverse in particular, seems to be a place where profiles will live on, regardless of whether an instance fails over time. Though I do like to write, this is sadly, not so with some former websites I used to frequent and a lot of what I’ve written has also now been lost to the test of time.

If we were to leave our handle somewhere in our final documents, then someone could eventually peruse the profile and learn who we were. Perhaps by then there will be a way to bubble up the more personal anecdotes to the surface, and maybe the best memes as well.