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Bingo! That was exactly my question.

That would be the most loving and mature thing for the old man to do. Saddling one of your children with your skeevy secrets and burdening him with this 'last request' as if there won't be enough on his plate burying Dad and grieving for him, is selfish and cruel. Also overly drama-queenish. Dad needs to emotionally let go of whatever's in that box now and take care of it himself. Then, when the time comes that he's incapacitated, that will be one less thing for him and his son to worry about.

Son should refuse to be party to this, return the shed key and tell Dad to take care of his own trash, or he will not be responsible for the consequences. What if what is in the box is evidence of a crime? No truly caring parent would ask this of a child. So much for being his kid's 'best friend'. Dad has to stop thinking like a buddy and act like a protective father in this instance. Torch the box, remove the evidence and say nothing more of it to any of his kids.

Remember the story of Jacob and Esau? You're not alone (lots of jealous siblings post here) in imagining yourself as the child "not picked" to carry out dad's last wishes. But our choice of words to describe the situation makes it ugly. Loving? Mature? Skeevy? Burdening? Selfish? Cruel? Overly drama-queenish? Evidence of a crime?

There are more legitimate reasons for someone to keep secrets from his family than there are sexy scandals to be covered up. Maybe this son is his only biological child and he wants that son to have his memoirs of whatever significant events happened earlier in his life. The big kicker might be the will that supersedes the one he gave his second wife, or his "emergency fund" from when he was single.

tonto_goldberg:

Remember the story of Jacob and Esau? You're not alone (lots of jealous siblings post here) in imagining yourself as the child "not picked" to carry out dad's last wishes. But our choice of words to describe the situation makes it ugly. Loving? Mature? Skeevy? Burdening? Selfish? Cruel? Overly drama-queenish? Evidence of a crime?

There are more legitimate reasons for someone to keep secrets from his family than there are sexy scandals to be covered up. Maybe this son is his only biological child and he wants that son to have his memoirs of whatever significant events happened earlier in his life. The big kicker might be the will that supersedes the one he gave his second wife, or his "emergency fund" from when he was single.

I'm sorry, but given Dad's intensely secretive behavior over the contents of the box, I am not out of line by imagining that whatever is in the box are damning or shameful, at least in Dad's mind. What kinds of secrets are we most protective of? Usually something dealing with sex or money or issues of identity . . .ours or our children's. Maybe Dad is an illegal or something. I can think of very few truly 'legitimate' reasons for keeping secrets from your nearest and dearest, especially a son you consider your 'best friend.' A secret by its nature is something we don't want to see the light of day, and there isn't anything legitimate about that. If Dad's secret box is benign, or for the reasons you're suggesting, then Son should know, and needs to know. Dad is not just giving him custody of the box--that would mean that Son could make use of its contents as he sees fit. Dad is very adamant that the box be destroyed, without being looked at or shared. He wants to give son this responsibility without full access . . .which is not fair or loving, particularly if the information relates to him.

Dad is within his rights to keep the box private--but if nothing in there is active now, while he's still living, what will change after he's dead? Why not destroy it now and spare the son the job? Dad seems to want to have it both ways--he wants to keep his secrets but dictate, from the grave, how they will be disposed of. That is a selfish expectation, and I think he needs to deal with his own mess and not palm it off on his kid, if he's not going to give the kid full access to what's in there.

I do remember the story of Jacob and Esau, very well. But I think you've totally missed the point of it--that was all about how paternal secrets and favoritism destroy a family. Apropos here, too. I don't have an issue with one child being selected as the custodian of his father's secrets, per se--I do have issue with the fact that, if these things pertain to him, he's not being cued in. As such, the relationship he believes to be 'best friends' and not just father and son, is in fact, rooted in a significant dishonesty.

Maybe Dad has a little bit of dementia going on, or his guilt over the secrets of the box has blown up their actual damaging power out of their real proportion. Nevertheless, he needs to take responsibility for getting his own affairs in order--all of them, including the dispensation of this box. He doesn't have to give up his secrets--but if he wants absolute secrecy and privacy and peace of mind that the box has been destroyed according to his wishes, then he needs to do it himself.

As for my imagined scenarios--why can't I come up with some alternative explanations as well as you? If mine are a little on the extreme side--well, truth is often stranger than fiction. I never underestimate what people are capable of, or what they are capable of hiding from their families. Remember the upstanding citizen in Austria who kept his own daughter chained in the basement and impregnated her seven times, all without the knowledge of the rest of the family? This dad's secrets might not be on that level . . .but they could be. Even if they are more innocent, it'd be healthier and better to get them out in the open, or burn the damn thing now, while he is still capable of a relationship with his family.

And again I ask, why not burn it NOW.

I'm missing something here. What sort of thing does one keep until one dies and then burn it? And what sort of thing needs to be first kept and then burned rather than just dumped in the Waste Management bin?

And what sort of thing needs to be first kept and then burned rather than just dumped in the Waste Management bin?

in a word, porn. think about it...it has to be something that has some sort of use while the father is alive, and not after. porn is the one thing that comes to mind for me, though I'd love to hear if others have ideas that match this description.

i'm sure many guys have at least joked about the need to have a friend clear their internet history/cookies if they die suddenly so their parents/wife doesn't see it. or, in a more dated fashion, joked about the need to have a friend retrieve the magazine they hide under their bed.

If i were the LW, i'd ask the old man to give me a general idea of whats inside. if it is something benign (but embarassing) like porn, then honor the request (i would hope you have the strength to not break down and tell his wife about something so insignificant). if it is something larger and seedier, then you can say "i don't think i'd be able to keep a large secret from my family". you really need to have at least a general idea of whats in the box before promising how you will react when viewing it.

bfish:

...porn is the one thing that comes to mind for me, though I'd love to hear if others have ideas that match this description.

If Dad is The Batman, and the box is where he keeps all of his Batman stuff (you know, Utility Belt, Batman outfit, keys to the Batmobile, Batcopter and Batmotocycle, Alfred, etc.) and wants the son to take over his Batmanly ways after he dies, that would meet the description and still require the extreme secrecy explained by the LW.

Just sayin'. :-)

Duh!

KA

seriously, duh!

It's his journal. He's still writing in it, but doesn't want anyone else to know his secret thoughts.

You're projecting again. Jacob and Esau is about secrets and favoritism, and betrayal. That's exactly the point, and the only point. These things happen, and have always happened. So what am I missing?

Maybe the LW's dad is overly secretive (or demented) about something that wouldn't matter to anyone else but it matters to him, and that's important. There are simply a lot of things that go on among and between family members that the rest of the family has no need to know about. They are not nearly all sexual or criminal or life-threatening or even embarrassing. I can accept that without trying to tell other people how they ought to behave towards one another. You seem to find that attitude offensive. I must live in a different part of the country than you, or maybe it's the nature of my family that is different.

One of my friends has parents that keep significant amounts of cash in the house. She is the only one of several siblings that moved back close to home to help mom nurse dad through a two-year successful battle with cancer. The understanding is that the cash is hers alone if anything happens to mom and dad while they are traveling. Is that fair to the other siblings? No, but it's the way the parents wanted it. My friend is not greedy - she has a good job and enough to get by on her own. I do not know if she will take the money when the time comes.

You aren't missing any facts here, you are just failing to make the connection. We don't know what's in the box, and our efforts to guess at what might be in the box are obscuring the single most important issue. It's not how anyone else feels, it's how dad feels about the box and the stuff in it that's important. If dad has kept this stuff secret for a long time, another few years won't matter. Again, and most importantly, it gives dad some peace of mind for his favorite son to tell him it will be taken care of.

It is entirely possible that none of it would matter to anyone else in the whole world. If it is proof of legitimacy or illegitimacy, or a new will, or hidden assets, there will be a stink when it comes out - if it comes out. If the boy burns everythign without looking, it might not matter or it might be a big loss. It really doesn't matter if it's porn, or cash, or the manuscript to a bad novel, or Hitler's missing testicle, or Jimmy Hoffa's head.

Adding the word "why" to the beginning of an observation does not make it a legitimate question.

Dad does not want the stuff burned, shredded, buried, or otherwise destroyed now. That's all there is, and it's important to him. What's so hard to understand about that?

Obviously, there is a reason his father wants him to see it. Seems sensible to me to have a little faith in the father because OF COURSE if it's horrid he wouldn't be doing this.

Under traditional Jewish law, Esau would have a birthright which was an extra share of his father's estate. Jacob swindled Esau out of his birthright. Esau was his father's favorite and he was a hunter while Jacob was a shepherd. Isaac intended to give his favorite son Esau a blessing on his death-bed but Jacob swindled his father out of that blessing. Jacob thus obtained control of all of his father's estate and Esau became his servant.

How was that family destroyed? They all proceeded as requried under the law. Jacob was a crook and Esau was bitter but they did what they were supposed to do.