What's the weirdst thing you found when someone died?

[ferriswheel]

I was thinking of writing a diary. Something to help me figure out why i sabotage my weight loss success and why i tolerated the bad behaviour of my husband for so long.

I dont at all expect anything untoward happening to me but the idea of my inner most thoughts being read by whoever...

Anyway, have you ever found anything that you shouldnt have, but had to deal with because of the circumstances?

Not the weirdest thing I found, but what we didn't find..

My mum died about four years before my dad. After my dad died we found no paperwork. No birth certificates, no marriage certificates, no family death certificates, no insurance papers, absolutely nothing that gave us any family links. It's been 12 years and I still wonder where that stuff went.

My dad died when I was 18. He lived away from us and when we want to sort his belongings I found a tiny scrap of paper that I had written I love you daddy on. It was from when I was six. He used to put the date on everything.

My grandmother's brother was widowed in the late 1930s and remarried late in life, in the 1980s. His wife was lovely. She had no family so when she eventually died (a year or so after my great uncle) my mum and aunt dealt with things. Documents showed that she was nine years older than she had always claimed. We never found out if my great uncle knew or not.

A desperate letter from my mother to my father when she found out that she was pregnant with her 3rd child in 4 years after a horrific forceps birth ( me)only a year before . She was trying hot gin and very hot baths and talked about throwing herself down the stairs . It haunts me still 10 years after I found it in my fathers belongings . He was in the forces and she was coping alone . The baby was conceived while she was bf and hadn’t had a period .
I would like to say everything went well after the baby arrived but they were very unhappy together for many years .
I wish my dad had burnt the letter. I can only think he put it away and lost it as I found it after he had moved many times and surely he could not have meant to leave such a legacy.

We found a load of notes all over the place when looking for the will in all the places we looked: 'remember to tell the family where the will is' .
We found it in the end.

A Nazi belt when my dad died. It was originally his father's who was a driver in WWII and was in a box of stuff he'd brought with him when he cleared the house after my grandad died. I still have it. I hate it but am loathe to throw it away because it's a piece of (admittedly awful) history. I did ask the Imperial War Museum if they wanted it but they didn't get back to me.

My (very gentle and upstanding citizen) Grandads (very tame and not in any way actual pornographers) girlie magazines. He had an operation shortly before he died and he asked for a few minutes alone with my Dad (his son in law). Was all super emotional wondering what knowledge or wisdom he wanted to pass on the the new Patriach of the family.

But no, it was just him asking my Dad to move his six dog eared copies of Play Boy from underneath the mat in the boot of his car We never told my Nan but it gave us all a chuckle at a grim time. I’m sure my Dad kept them for sentimental reasons.

This is weird as in unexpected as opposed to weird strange.
When my DM died my DF got rid of a lot of personal possessions, including all her jewellery.
When DF died I was sorting out literally boxes of paperwork. I was at the bottom of yet another storage box of papers - I'd got to the point where I realised that it was all old bank statements etc and probably worth just tipping instead of sorting. I was just scraping around the bits and pieces at the bottom of the box and I spotted DM's engagement ring! It could so easily have been binned. I cried. There was no reason for it to be there, it wasn't in a ring box or anything, just lying at the bottom of the box. It's not even as if she used to wear it and it could have fallen off. A mystery. But a very welcome one.

My siblings and I found lots of photos of my dad and his 2nd wife after he died.

Special photos.

Revealing FAR more of my beloved Dad than I ever wanted to see, thankyouverymuch.

Fellout, after my equally mind-mannered FIL died, and DH and S'sIL were supervising the house clearance, one of the hired hands chirped up, "Eh mate, gorrany bluies in there?" Tasteful. there were, actually

A bottle of whisky in my granddad pantry. It had a clear mark for the level of liquid at some point to ensure it wasn't being drunk.....he was teetotal and the bottle full. He was 80 at the time, no idea where it came from but guessing it was while my dad was a child hence the mark. Why keep it? Who knows.

My grandmother had lied about her first name! Even my mum didn’t know her real name until after she died!

Not weird as in unusual but weird as in cliche you don't expect to be true these days.

THOUSANDS of pounds under the mattress, granda clearly really didn't trust banks there was even some pre-decimalisation notes

When my uncle passed away, as he was a bachelor, me and dbro went to sort his house out. On clearing stuff out we found a solid plastic medicine pot. Thinking his pills were in there, and we’d need to take them to the pharmacy so they could dispose of them. Nope, it was full of these tiny dark brown pellets. Me and dbro couldn’t work out what it was, and threw it away.

Turns out it was hash

We knew he smoked like a chimney, and liked his drink, but this was something else. Could explain why he had a massive stroke and died —fool—

Shodan that's brilliant

When my DGF passed we discovered he kept a safe. There was 15k in cash still in brown wage packets from his job (kept for holidays apparently) and loads of his kids (my Dad and Uncles) childhood drawings and cards and photos of the grandchildren. My DGM is not typically a sentimental woman, though no doubt loves her family, but it turns out my DGF was a very sentimental man.

There was something else actually. My grandma was a career woman; worked right up until a few days before she died. She lived for her work, wasn’t a particularly sentimental person.

But when my mum went to her office to clear away her things, she found that my grandmother had a frame of pictures from my mums childhood, pictures of me and my sisters as babies, drawings we had all done, up on the wall. Knowing her as well as we (thought we) did, it really touched me in a big way. We displayed the set of pictures at her wake.

Sounds like you need to give a few more details

Clearing my dads flat, I discovered stockings, petticoats, sulky ladies nightware and a homemade buttplug. Fuck knows what planet my dad was on, but my sister was scandalised and asked me not to say anything, as if I would.
My grandad had a friend who was a judge. He lived in a train carriage until he died. His family was absent until then. They had looked everywhere for his money.
It wasn't until they burnt the last book they had that they discovered that was where he hid his money. He didn't trust banks. This was in the late 80's.

When my gran died, my mum found my gran’s communion photographs - quite strange as my gran was, as far as we knew, a very bitter Protestant woman who hated my mum marrying my Catholic father and raising us as Catholics

Not me, but my dear friend, when his sister had died - she’d been struggling with her mental health and they had thought it was an accident and not a real attempt at ending her life. He found the suicide note and has not told any of his family. I know he struggles with that and with what he should have done but years have passed now... Really sad for all involved.

Just read through these posts and feel quite emotional. My mum sadly passed away recently and I’ve been dealing with paperwork etc, she left letters and diaries.
She was always very honest and open and I knew without a doubt how much I was loved, but to find handwritten things saying these things is hard.
Btw never sniff a scarf

My mum cleared out her dads apartment and told Me she found a blow up doll hidden in a cupboard with a crusty ‘hole’ 🤢

When I cleaned out my dads flat I found a duffle bag full of electric plugs cut from the wires, 35 packs of brand new socks and a bag of stones with a slingshot.

I've always thought ds2 looked like me and my side of the family but I found a photo of dh that looked like ds2 had gone time travelling to the 1980's.

When my grandma died me and my mum were clearing out her flat. I never had much of a relationship with her apart from letters a few times a year, I never met my grandad who died at a young age (late 30's I think) my mum never spoke of them much, I saw her (grandma) for the first time when I was 15 and she died when I was 17.

Going through my grandmas stuff I found my grandads immigration card, it said he was Bangladeshi. Very odd as I'd always been told he was Spanish. I never told my mum about it but she took it all home with us. I don't know if she knew the truth or not, it's all a bit weird and I just can't bring myself to ask her. I wish my grandma was alive to explain it to me. When she was dying in hospital she kept apologising to my mum. I do wonder if he did die at all and that he left and my grandma lied about him to save my mums feelings.