I’m Namika, a 30-year-old, and I’ve been married for about two years. I don’t have any children yet. My family home is about a three-hour drive away, where my mother lives alone. I’m one of three siblings; my older sister (Misato, 34) and her family live in my neighborhood, and my younger brother (Ren, 28, single) had been living alone in the next prefecture. However, my brother recently passed away suddenly in a traffic accident. While our family is grieving this profound loss, my mother opened his smartphone and insisted on going through his photos. The more I tried to talk her out of it, the more stubborn she became. She decided she would go through everything—not just the photos, but his social media as well—which led to an argument between us. I finally gave up on trying to reason with her and left my parents’ house.
Mom showed me a photo of her wearing a camisole, smiling. She told me, “Only a total freak would wear clothes like that.”
I don’t think it’s strange at all for a young couple to take pictures like that. In fact, I think it’s wrong for her to invade his privacy by opening his phone and then attack my brother and his girlfriend just because she doesn’t personally approve.
I suppose that, in her eyes, he will always just be her sweet little boy.
She must be unable to accept that, without her noticing, her son grew up to be a man.