Abandoned Places: Country Cottage

I was recently given a tour of a rural estate which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was shown into a couple of abandoned farm cottages. ‘Stepping back in time’ is often a useless and silly cliché, but here I think it is applied appropriately and judiciously. It was just like someone had walked out of their home in 1920 and never bothered to return. By the rusted, Victorian fireplace was a metal bathtub, now full of dirt and broken window panes.

Old chairs remained in corners, while up the rickety wooden staircase a Victorian photograph of a woman sat on the floor, having fallen off the wall. Dust and bird muck was everywhere, but this was once a family home, where children played and older folk sat by the fire, poking at the coals, warming themselves against the elements beyond. Their names and lives are long forgotten, the work they did of no lasting consequence, their inheritance nothing other than the DNA of their descendants, happily going about their business in our own century, unaware of the cotters who once lived in this tiny hovel. The woman whose portrait is now adorned by pigeon droppings and a century’s muck was once someone’s daughter, sister, wife or mother. She was deemed dear enough to preserve her image for posterity, but the present knows her not.

Most people in history are long forgotten. Sure, we recall the names of a few kings and queens, but Sally Housecoat and Joe Meatball are known no more. Go back far enough in time, and even rulers and influencers are erased from our memories. Most people who read this blog will be forgotten a few decades after the funeral, their memories retained in a few dry lines in some crusty and tedious family tree.

Remember me, O my God, in goodness, according to all that I have done for this people. Nehemiah 5:19

The remembrance he sought was God's, not man's. One day, God will resurrect all who ever lived, including the nameless folk who once called this cottage their home. Those who called on Him shall live with Him forever; those who rejected Him shall remain as they are: living but forgotten, alive but cut off, prisoners choking on the dust of death and the grime of regret.