Abandoned

Each day I try to learn something new. On Monday I read an online article titled

20 Haunting Ghost Towns of the World After trying to describe the article to my family, I realized that the story had more to tell us than mere images convey. It featured whole towns that have been left abandoned by natural and man-made disasters and miscalculations. The images show spectacular natural settings, dwelling of wood and stone, rows of rusted trucks, and remote brightly colored churches.  Nearly all continents are featured, from Europe, India, the Americas, and beyond. Fire, earthquake, and war were among the many causes of abandonment. Some people walked away to start new live elsewhere, others did not, and died along with their towns.

Each story of abandonment is different and yet all have similar themes. People found place with work, food, lodging, and settled in to live. Something happened that disrupted the settlement. This caused them to leave their attachments, and even belongings and loved ones, behind and, in some cases, start anew someplace else. Thus goes the circle of life.

None of the acts that caused these places to be abandoned were planned. Disasters, both natural and man-made, may come with warning signs, but most sneak into a place like a thief in the night. Sometimes the people were able to move on and find a place elsewhere but, this is not what the pictures show. The photos show the empty shells of abandoned lives.

Often, as with this article, these places are called “ghost towns,” which makes one think that they continue to be haunted by spirits forever.  This is highly romanticized and simplified of portrayal of both the towns and the people.  Ghosts remain in a place because they have unfinished business. They fill a space by haunting it to remind the living that something happened. If a place is entirely empty of the living, why would the dead stay to haunt it? The tranquility of the empty places featured in the article demonstrates an empty place, devoid of spirits. 

The reason that the story haunts me is that so much more was lost when these people abandoned their lives. An overused pirate proverb states that “dead men tell no tales.” There were stories that we will never know of individual who lived in these "ghost towns." We may never know what happened, of the births and deaths, celebrations and memorials. All we know is that they are now empty.  Perhaps the people lived and moved on. As they left, their stories changed, and the past blurred as they left it behind. I'm sure that many of them wanted to forget their lost cities.

This speaks to the need to live each day fully, because it may be your last. How does one remember and memorialize each day? Perhaps by taking small steps, doing small things, and living in the moment, people remain present. The story ends with a tale of a distant isle in Scotland which saw its last human residents voluntarily leave St. Kilda in 1930. It is said of the town that “each empty house on the island now contains a stone plaque naming every one of the final 36 residents who left all those years ago, providing a poignant reminder that this remote craggy rock wasn’t always devoid of human life.” The empty places remain to pay homage to the life that once lived there.