Late last summer, I went to an estate sale. It's not the kind of thing I do much, but I'd been thinking of such things, saw a sign for one on my way home from work, and decided to stop in.

It was sad. The house was sort of poor and rich at the same time. It was in a neighborhood which must have been almost rural when the house was built. The lots sizes were good, and the houses weren't all the same, as they tend to be in the Denver area. (I've never lived in an area of the country with a worse case of Cookie Cutter Architecture Syndrome.) This particular house had a long gravel driveway, a somewhat wooded lot, a detached garage out back. It was surrounded with ersatz brackish water features, a bridge over a non-operative brook, and a deck and gazebo built along a small and now-dank pond. Festive outdoor lanterns adorned the area. I could imagine the family sitting outside, alongside the then-bubbling brook, enjoying the cooling evening, or socializing with neighbors.

The house had three stories; the central area of the main floor almost entirely devoted to staircases taking you up and down. (You had to duck your head when going into the basement unless you were below 5'7".) The upstairs and basement were uneven, with floors and rooms that seem to have been built at different times by different people, none of them professionals. A laundry shoot (many of the visitors were asking what it was) connected a utility room in the basement with one of the attic rooms.

It seemed as though the family had been suddenly snatched, without warning, by flying monkeys. Family photos and extremely personal affects were everywhere. Awards and commemorations from a fraternal service organization. Books on various hobby subjects; and one or two cheezy titles from the 70s on obtaining maximum sexual pleasure. (Probably kept tucked in some obscure nook when the kids were growing up.) A collection of various kinds of camera (including movie cameras which must have been luxury items in their day), and personal photo after photo after photo: the kids growing up; the family at Christmas; kids with Dad and Mom in various locations when older. This or that kid graduating from college. Then there were also many more ancient photos, dating seemingly from the late 1800s and forward, of many long-dead relatives. I could understand that it was necessary to sell everything of value -- but all this?

I, and apparently a number of other patrons, went to talk to the people running the sale -- who'd set a card table up in the gazebo as the checkout -- about them. Was someone going to take the family photos? Should one of us buy them and track down the owners? Shouldn't they have these? Why were they left? (I mean, if I had to rush from my burning residence, and could only grab a few things, my photos would probably go first.)

The plan was to wait for the sale to be over, presuming (reasonably so, I thought) that the photos wouldn't really sell. One of the neighbors was going to come over on the last day of the sale and collect them. I hope that happened, but admit I didn't go back again.

There's a scene in the movie "Zorba the Greek", where a rich old lady with no living relatives dies. In the minutes and hours after her death, the townspeople break into her place and strip it — tearing photos from the wall, furniture from the room, draperies from the windows — even blankets from the deathbed and clothing from the corpse. All in high speed, like a series of time-elapsed photos of an animal corpse being stripped bare.

For some reason, I was reminded of the futility of that scene. It was somehow worse knowing that the owners were still alive somewhere, presumably. The shoppers were nowhere near as ravenous (and most of the stuff for sale bordered on junk status), but it still seemed to feel as if one was trespassing in the life of another, violating their privacy. Because, I guess, we were. Not that we knew them. But I kept putting myself in their shoes and thinking about it.

And why had it come to this? Had one of these parents died or become sick? Had they divorced bitterly? Had one of them become an alcoholic? Did the kids still visit? Why didn't they have the photos already? Were they forcibly removed from their property by the police? Didn't they receive a foreclosure notice, a warning of some sort? Couldn't they have put some of this into their car when they went? Where were they now? I didn't want to find out by intruding further into their lives, but the questions asked themselves over and over with each orphaned treasure.

I bought a small insulated cooler jug, a book for a friend about some ill-fated climbing expedition, a party game, and a three-hole punch.

I passed on the ski gear circa 1982, swim fins, four different pressure cookers, camera collection, lathe, heat lamps, race track, clothes, wineglass collection, kids' toys and games (clearly from the same era as the kids photos), fondue pot, several pressure cookers, endless array of narrow-purposed kitchen gadgets (each advertised, I'm sure as "Makes a great gift!"), obsolete computer equipment, file cabinets, etc. I'm still haunted by the memory of all the stuff, especially since I myself sometimes still struggle with an attachment to such.

Life is short, friends, and you can't take it with you.