I believe that despite all the authority a parent has over his child, there are certain lines that cannot be crossed, especially once the child is a child no more.
My siblings and I, we are all junk collectors. That is to say, we still keep many things from our past which, although deemed valueless, bear some sort of meaning to its owner. Its a messy habit, but all of us understand that to keep an excess of things also means an extra responsibility to keep them tidy and in order. That is a rule we all adhere to. My youngest brother and I especially both have a tendency to scribble and doodle on bits of scrap paper lying around and to later put them away and forget about them. He draws comics while I jot down random thoughts. I can’t tell you how warm the feeling is to stumble upon a piece of writing written eons ago by yourself. Its like a letter from the past to the future, and to recall feeling the way the former you once felt, feelings strong enough to compel you to write them long ago…well, it amazes you. It makes you wonder at how you had ever written down such thoughts before.
So yeah. My siblings and I are quite protective over our possessions. It takes a while to decide that priceless junk is still junk and needs to go. We sometimes form fancies that one day, our things will become very rare antiques and will sell at sky-high prices. We laugh because we know that if that possibility were to happen, we wouldn’t place a price on our junk even then.
Tonight, I watched my father throw out many of my brother’s things from his childhood. He says its all just garbage taking up space. What I managed to salvage (albeit secretly) I hid, other forms of memorabilia I had to fight for, while the rest went to the bin. My pleas for respect to my brother’s property fell on deaf ears. He should have at least been given a chance to finger his things one last time before losing them indefinitely.
That was crossing the line of privacy as well.
I don’t think I have ever felt his absence more than how I felt tonight.
I’m sorry Lutfi. I tried.
Enough said here.
