This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I discovered a pile of sleep shirts that I’d forgotten to put away last night after I finished folding my laundry. Absently, barely dressed and still damp from my morning shower, I split the shirts into stacks that would fit in my dresser and moved to tuck them away when I noticed that the shirts I’d split the stack at both probably needed to be thrown out (because the armpit holes had become visible while the shirts were folded). One was a shirt I’ve known for a while I’d need to throw away but have resisted doing so because I really like the graphic on it and there’s no replacing it. The other one was a shirt I’d gotten some years prior, after doing a canoe-marathon-fundraiser event with my father for an organization that maintained a large stretch of the Des Plaines river in Illinois. As I thought about throwing it away, I realized that I would be disposing of a connection to my parents and replacing it with some other shirt that is too stained or holey for regular wear. That thought spiraled out and I realized that, like the proverbial full refreshing of your body via cellular replacement every seven years and the Ship of Theseus that leant it’s name to the paradox, it would not be long before all the connections I had to my parents would be gone. Perhaps this thought was circling my subconscious already since I made myself a big meal the night before using a recipe I’d inherited from my mother, but I’ve thought about little else since it came to mind this morning.