Possession can be temporary even when no return date exists.
A family object may be legally owned by one person while carrying memories and expectations distributed among several. A child’s work may be stored by a parent who cannot know which object the adult child will later value. An archive may hold material for a future researcher. A borrowed tool may remain for years without becoming ours.
Custody changes the questions.
Who else has a claim? What condition must be maintained? Can the object be used, altered, loaned, sold, or discarded? Is the story documented well enough to travel apart from the current keeper?
Keeping everything is not neutral. Storage consumes space, money, attention, and sometimes the material itself. Poor conditions can damage an object more slowly than disposal but no less completely. A keeper may need to transfer, digitize, repair, divide, or release.
The phrase “for someone else” should also be tested. The imagined future recipient may not want the burden. Honest custody allows refusal.
An object worth carrying forward needs more than sentiment. It needs a credible relationship, enough provenance to explain its significance, and a keeper able to meet the present obligation.
We do not honor another person by making them inherit every decision we could not make.