Privacy After Death

I don't think my family ever had much to hide.

I have both my grandparent's (WW1) and my parent's private love letters. It is wonderful to read them to know how happy they were in their marriages. I have a whole pile of letters carefully tied up with string and kept in a box for my children.

I think it would be very sad if this type of family history was lost, but perhaps I can understand that other people might have less happy memories that are better destroyed.

As far as online is concerned, I am sure my children will have a laugh at some of my MN posts, but again I don't think there is anything that would be hurtful or upsetting. They already know me well enough to imagine what I will have written on various dog walking posts (they are just grateful I have stopped posting similar embarrassing diatribes on FB) and their late DF was far more embarrassing in public than I could ever been in secret!

I can understand that perfectly.

Pre Dementia my DM was an intensely private, fastidious person, so even though in later stage dementia she wouldn’t know or care, I prevented a couple of relatives from going to see her by saying that it distressed her to see what (to her);would be strangers.

She’d never been keen on them anyway, and I know her former self would have been utterly mortified to think of them seeing her in that undignified state.

I have boxes and boxes of journals and papers. God help those who have to go through them after I'm dead. DH says he's going to have a lovely massive bonfire.

...Actually only a couple of weeks since the (previous) last post

Sorry-not-sorry

I've just realised that this thread was a teeny bit zombiefied, but I remembered it with the current thread about Ken Dodd's wishes for all of his diaries.

Still a fascinating thread - and an interesting one to (accidentally) bump a month later.

My best friend is under strict instructions to set fire to my phone and launch it into the sea

Won't the latter rather negate the former?!

I’m dreading sorting out inlaws’ house and father’s house (evil stepmother around) when they go 🤦🏼‍♀️

We had letters DFIL and MIL wrote to each other during WW2 when DH was a baby. A lot of it is about him and is quite amusing and very sweet. I am sure they would not mind at all that we have read them and have passed them over to DN who is interested in family history.

I thought about this a while ago and have shredded all stuff like photos, letters and diaries. Only stuff needed has remained. It was not difficult and I feel a lot better for doing it.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/23/i-travelled-across-america-to-discover-my-mothers-secrets-and-instead-found-i-have-my-own?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This article made me think of this thread- mother shares diary with adult daughter and daughter realises bits have been redacted and comes to terms with the fact that she has no right to know certain things about her mother’s life.

If diaries, letters, etc., are absolutely not to be seen by anyone else, perhaps they should be left in a locked box, and a key left also with a solicitor who is instructed to destroy the contents in the event of the person's death.

I agree. My DH burnt his teenager diaries on my suggestion last year. I said I would never read them but if I wasn’t around to destroy them I’m sure our kids would.

My DS died just over 3 years ago, he was 22 and had a brain haemorhage. He gave life to 4 men through organ donation. That Sunday evening when we came home when he was in theatre, I found a diary on his windowsill, the front of it said, What would David Bowie do. He had just split up with his longterm girlfriend 3 months before he died, I flicked through it, but had to put it away. If I had known about his personal diary I would have buried it with him. I don't know what to do with it now, my heart is broken enough xo

I did keep a diary for a short while when I was 23, late 1990s, very influenced by Bridget Jones. Read it a few years ago, it was all very "9st 4 lbs - OK but oh dear I ate half a pizza."

Want to write back to myself and say "Eat the whole pizza while you can, your BMI is, like, 19 and a size 8 is big on you."

I kept a diary for a full year once when I was 10, I'd love to read that now.

I've read back blogs and stuff I posted online (that's as close as I'll get) in the last 20 years and that is quite fun. Occasionally embarrassing.

Conversely I regret not keeping up with my diary. Reading my teenage thoughts has been great, so funny so I wish I could look back at when I was planning my wedding and the first stages of parenthood. Receipts, ticket stubs and notes received. Writing this has made my mind up, I’m going to start again at 52!

How about curating it — choosing the best photos and putting them in an album with some text to identify who's who and what the event was? Not suggesting you try to rewrite history, but if removing a few photos and writing something that says something along the lines of 'I met Tom in 1991 and for a while I thought perhaps my future was meant to be with him. Here we are on holiday in Crete. They were some some happy times, but it didn't work out long-term...' Maybe you quietly dispose of the photo showing you snogging him half to death to protect your current partner's feelings. You don't have to go into a lot of detail, but I suppose what you do is control the narrative — not to deceive but to make things easier for those left behind. You could put any photos you can't bear to throw away in an envelope labelled with a trusted friend's name on it and a note with instructions to destroy without looking after your death.

Your comment did struck with me. I was just reading this topic and came across your post. It was this morning and I still can’t shake it off and my mind keep on coming back to it. I am so so sorry

I don't keep a diary but started to realise how writers must feel when I did a writing course recently. A lot of writers riff on personal experience, amplify, exaggerate, make someone in real life a much worse character than they actually were etc.

I was showing my mum a piece of writing which was based on experiences living in my old house though amplified/made up and it still felt really personal to show someone that work. More someone I know than a stranger.

I just don't understand people putting pen to paper. My diary is full of appointments & NOT my thoughts.
I do have a massive trunk full of birthday / new baby / sorry for your loss / Mother's day etc cards which I will tell my kids to get rid of! Can't bear to do it myself, handwriting of lost loved ones..

I've always thought about this and write my diaries knowing someone may read it. Lol maybe I'm weird.

My best friend is under strict instructions to set fire to my phone and launch it into the sea 😀

Just wanted to add, I wonder if people's reactions are perhaps coloured by the ages they are, and the ages their parents/grandparents were. I come from a very stretched out series of generations - most of my grandparents were born in the 1880s, and died long before I was born, I only ever knew one - so everything they touched seems historical, not personal. I can see that you might feel differently if you are, say, 28 and your recently deceased grandmother is 75.

I really don't understand people who would read them anyway, even when the person they loved specifically asked them not to. I'd see it as an absolute betrayal to do so and not even dream of going against their wishes.

I can live with the thwarted curiosity. I couldn't live with myself if I read something that they so badly wanted not to be read.