The idea for “Going Missing” was triggered by my Aunt Mitzie’s death late last year as well as my father’s recent sight loss, but it’s a concept I’ve been toying with for a very long time—perhaps 15 years or more—and I’m still not done with it.

My immediate family was always very small: I’m an only child; my father’s brother died before my father was even born, so his experience was as an only child; my mother had only one sister, and my aunt and uncle had no children together. (My uncle had children, and they were a huge part of my aunt’s life as were their children, but my contact with them was very limited until my aunt’s recent illness.)

I knew my grandparents, and I had a bonus grandmother from a second marriage, but they (and my uncle) passed away years ago. I have no children, so once my parents and I are gone, so is everything that was my family.

In essence, there are things that have become, are about to become, or will soon become extinct—like what it was like to sit down in front of a radio and listen to serials; what the term “banker’s hours” means; what research was like before computers. I get a dose of these things when I think about my family, and when I stand in front of students who can’t seem to live without their cell phones.

Things and people are disappearing, and while much of the modern world is good, a part of me is fearful I have no way of holding on to real ideas from the past.

Shawn Hansen is busy writing more stuff.