Lionel was a collector and he was 11 in 1931 when the Great Depression derailed the world. He and Tui threw very little away. Things were stored and kept in case they were needed, by anyone. Lionel's bedside drawer, as I discover, is a place he put things he might need later. And precious personal things he wanted to keep. The substrata of the drawer is a layer of pens and pencils. So old they don't work. On top are papers: an old passport, change of name, designation as Justice of the Peace, parents' marriage certificate, to name a few. The next layer is Lionel's war medals, an armadillo belt buckle I gave him, an chief's head belt buckle, a selection of coins, some commemorative, driver's licenses, a ticket to a cricket game at Lords...It takes me all afternoon to go through the drawer. The keep pile, is larger than the discard pile. I can't throw Lionel's lifetime of personal mementoes in the bin. No matter their time is past, tokens of life's ephemerality. What makes a life is these moments, when it's gone it's gone but I need to keep these till I am ready to let my childhood and my role as a daughter go.
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