The remnants of a future that almost was: What is a memento? A few months ago, I returned to my hometown for the Christmas holidays. My current house in Italy used to belong to my grandmother. I spent my childhood and teenage years there. To me, it was the safest place in the world. Now, it is a source of heart-wrenching grief and misery. The house brims with memories of my grandma and my mother, who both passed away in 2018. Throughout the past five years, every return to my birthplace has been an emotional rollercoaster. I only recently learned to bury some of my most self-destructive feelings deep within those corners of my mind that I seldom have access to. However, I still occasionally fail and let some of them sneak out. Especially when digging through old belongings in search of my family’s artefacts. Who knows how many stories…