The Passport

I Wonder:

What do you do, or what will become,
of a passport after the holder is gone?
The passport doesn't expire
for another year.
What about a framed birth certificate
that Ma put under glass
over seventy years ago now?
And the age-yellowed report card
naming her an honor student?
And that classmate picture
where she is told she will
always be remembered and loved?
The writer, out of touch for decades,
recently wrote another card,
A sympathy card, this time.
Shouldn't the years in between
have lasted as long as the paper
the cards were written on?