A demised friend's room

When one of my closest friends passed away last January, I knew he had left behind a treasure trove in his room. Among many things, he was a man of books and thought, someone who always found comfort in pages and print. Still, I had no inkling of the extent—or the sheer richness—of what he had kept close to him all those years.

His sister was in the process of clearing out the room and had kindly invited a few of his friends over, suggesting we take anything that held meaning to us, anything we might want to keep as a memento. What I saw when I stepped inside truly astounded me.

One side of his room was lined with bookshelves, every inch occupied. Two full rows were dedicated to computer books—outdated, of course, as technology marches on relentlessly and renders manuals obsolete within years. But beyond that were the real gems: another two rows filled with classic literature and dictionaries. These were books with weight—not just physical, but intellectual and emotional. Titles that spanned centuries, works that had shaped civilisations.

He had been a passionate reader, especially of ancient history. His shelves were filled with Penguin Classics and scholarly translations of the great writers and thinkers of the past—Caesar, Homer, Livy, Plato, Tacitus, Plutarch, Thucydides. It made me pause, because in that moment, I recognised a kindred spirit. When I was in my twenties, I too had spent many hours with Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and the like. Oddly enough, we had never discussed our shared reading interests at all, but there it was—evidence that we had been walking rather parallel paths in our separate, private ways.

And then there were the dictionaries. At least three sets of English-language dictionaries, not counting the Bahasa versions. Pride of place went to the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, and beside it, the magnificent two-volume set of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Sixth Edition). They looked almost regal on the shelf, like sentinels watching over him while he read.

His sister had said, “Take whatever you like. Once everyone’s had a look, I’ll be calling the recycling people to clear out the rest.” My heart sank a little at that. These books—these precious written treasures—meant something. They represented a lifetime of curiosity, of quiet evenings, of reflection and learning. To think they might end up in a second-hand shop, or worse, in a landfill, was too much to bear.

So I made a decision. I took what I could—some of the classic titles, these two dictionaries, anything I felt carried a spirit of him—and left the tech manuals behind, naturally. My plan is to donate them to a library, perhaps one that still values the printed word, where students or lovers of history might browse them and feel, as he once must have, a sense of wonder at the past.

It’s a small way to honour him, but one I hope he would have appreciated. Books, after all, aren’t just objects. They’re memories, ideas, voices—and sometimes, they’re the closest we get to holding onto the soul of someone who’s gone. I shall miss you, my old friend, for the conversations we had and the conversations we never had.