Love blossoming over a telephone switchboard, a mid-life nose job, and Downy fabric softener. Nashville based burlesque performer BeBe McQueen shares the life of her glamorous grandmother Gigi and the story of the portrait that was almost lost forever.

If you’re lucky, you may have a few mementos, a few items, that belonged to someone who has died. That inherited stuff becomes proof of existence of a life, lived in all the ways a person lives; decently, dangerously, richly or strained and at odds. Depending on the relationship, that item could bring you great joy, longing, happiness, confusion, anger or just a general sense of obligation to tend to it as they would have.

It’s complicated how we feel about these tokes and trophies. You may feel the burden of caring for things that only you know the why and how of. Or, in the absence of any explanation or feelings, you may feel a willingness to fill in the blanks the best way you know how. Does the proof of a life extinguish and die without these stories?

There is meaning and importance and comfort in that which is left behind. On this podcast, Memento Stori, host Rebecca Delius will meet with people from all walks of life, some strangers and some childhood friends, who have all found themselves tasked, willingly or not, with guarding the relics of another one’s life.

Join us for the stories behind the stuff. Coming soon.