Clearing out

"stuff" - or, dare I say, my BIL uses a much less polite word? His language might be described as "earthy" at times.

He also tends to "speak his mind" or simply say exactly what he is thinking. 

I had a number of very old photographs on the kitchen table and he picked them up, "You don't want these do you?"

"Yes, I do."

"What for?"

"Well that one is my paternal great-grandmother on her eighty-fifth birthday."

"Yeah, so what?"

"It is part of our family history and she was a very special person, very advanced in her thinking."

"She went to university?"

"No, you don't need to go to university to have ideas ahead of your time. For example, she voted in the very first elections women could vot in and she encouraged other people to do the same." 

My BIL looks disbelievingly at me but I know Great-Grandma's history. Yes,  she voted. She made sure everyone around her was enrolled to vote and that they went to do it. This state was the first to allow women the vote and she made sure women used it. She also made sure that the indigenous people she employed were enrolled, understood what they had to do and also "attended the ballot box". It might not have made her too popular with the men who had opposed the idea of allowing woman and "aboriginals"to vote but she believed in it. She also believed in equal pay for equal work, even if she did keep their post office pass books in her possession because the men tended not to give their wives the money she thought they needed to feed and clothe the children. 

So yes, I do want the photograph of my great-grandmother. I want the other photographs too. There are not many. Other people may not be interested but I am. Just because my BIL tells me I need to "get rid of stuff" does not mean I have to give away the really important things...and that photograph is very important to me.