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?

Oh EmmaG! That's tough!

After my widowed Mum died my brother and I found a massive black rubber dildo in her bedside table. She knew she was dying, I can only imagine that she never faced up to it enough to get rid of the embarrassing stuff. Still shudder at the memory of that moment.

My MIL and FIL divorced in the mid-70’s and MIL married a very creepy guy. When he died in the early 2000’s my MIL asked her (Middle-aged) children to clean out all his stuff. He had a photo lab and tiny studio on their place and in this the siblings found hundreds of photos he’d taken of naked women he knew.

The odd thing is my MIL knew the about the pics and this hobby of taking pics of women, yet she had my husband and his siblings go through all his things. They got rid of the photos very quickly but my husband bought home a large tool box that belonged to this man and when he got it home he found a missed picture in it.

He handed me there picture saying, “Oh god, it’s not mom is it”? The picture was of a woman with legs akimbo, and judging by the room furnishings and her hairstyle I judged it to have been taken in the 1950’s or 60’s - before he met MIL. The sibs were all aware there must have been pictures of their mother in there some where. She loved having her picture taken - lol.

She was just too damn lazy to cover his tracks.

We found my uncles porn stash when we were clearing out his house

When my paternal grandad died (I was 9) my parents discovered that he had been married before he met my grandma. When I was in my mid 20s, me and my Aunty decided to do some research as nobody seemed particularly interested in my grandads former life! We discovered my grandad was married to a French-Canadian nurse who sadly died of TB while nursing soldiers during WW2. They had two children who were taken back to Canada by her relatives when she died as my grandad was fighting in the war. It makes me sad that my dad has two half sisters he’s never met and probably don’t know or will ever know (or knew!) he exists.

Some of these are so heartbreakingly sad.

When my nan died we found out she was pregnant with her eldest when she married. Her eldest was pregnant with her eldest hen she got married and my nan was all ‘the shame, the shame’! We do all think she was implying her own shame.

Not weird, just odd.
When my boyfriend died, I cleared out his ‘shed’, it was huge, 2 rooms, electric and a ‘toilet’! He didn’t spend much time in there while we were together, would go and watch sport on his laptop (had a WiFi extender) occasionally or when having a grump!

I found about £400 in coins (which I still have in a box under my bed!) Over 200 tennis balls (he was a gardener and a couple of his clients had courts but I have no idea why he would collect them up and bring them home!) Various interesting shaped bits of wood ( that he knew I wouldn't left him have in the house (it wasn’t a very big house)). A pile of his old pants that I made him get rid of, they were foul and old! A note book with various notes and letters he had written to me explaining why he was in a grump, shopping lists with food I never bought because I didn’t like but I’d have been happy to buy it in for him had he actually asked me. And dozens of scribbled ‘I love you’ notes to me.

Oh PUFFYCAT I know just exactly what you mean... when my darling mother died rather suddenly I took her newly laundered flanellette nightie from under her pillow. She used the same wash powder for many years, and I held it to my face all that first night ... could smell "mum" because of the wash powder she always used... I broke my heart when finally, it had lost it's fragrance of mum, and I had to throw it away. xxx

Elderly single lady neighbour
Found hand written love notes on beautifully written embroidered postcards from various would be suitors

Thousands of pounds worth of unopened pay packets from the 40s and 50s and 60s with rare out of circulation bank notes , some brand new.

When my maternal GP’s died we cleared their house. 65+ years of love and memories in black bags and skips was heartbreaking. We found love letters to each other which was beautiful. We also found a birth certificate for my GM’s eldest son (no one knew existed) whom she’d had as the result of a fling and we later discovered her firstborn had gone with his father when she had fled from Wales to England, due to the shame of her adultery. My GM would often seem melancholy and suffered with depression and now I understand why. So sad and tragic because of the shame at the time of having a child outside of marriage.

My paternal grandfather also had money everywhere - biscuit tins, under the mattress, in the wardrobe, bathroom cabinet, drawers, etc and the biggest collection of plastic bags?!

Bless them all.

turnip farmers
are you sure they were really dead they may have faked their death and been actually living at secret house

Bought a Victorian house a few years ago that had been occupied by the previous owners for half a century, and they’d died there. It had been cleared out by their grandchildren. Lurking at the back of a high shelf inside a built in hall cupboard, we found a leather rod. It looked very much like something people used to beat children with.

@metalmum15 we found a live grenade in my grandpa’s garage too! We had to have the army come and take it away (he lived in Salisbury so they were close!) He was a career army officer so I suppose just ‘borrowed’ it from work at some point...

My sister and I were given the task of clearing our aunts house following her death. We found letters addressed to close family members. Our mum died years earlier, when we were very young. We gave the letters to their intended recipients without us reading them. One of the letters, addressed to one of her 5 sisters read "upon my death I leave you exactly what you have always given me - Nothing!" Eek! 😱

In my 20s as a young mum I worked in a local cafe. When it was shutting down one regular customer, an elderly man, asked where he would go for his coffee now. I jokingly said my house. So blossomed an unlikely friendship. His family didn't bother with him much, he even came to my mum's for Christmas one year. My dd adored him. When he died his daughter, who I'd never met before, asked me to help clear his flat. I found black and white girly mags in a high cupboard! Bless him. I was given his cribbage board (which I still have 20+ years later). I also wrote his obituary and catered his wake!!!!
At my grandpa's funeral (dm step father) alot of people turned up my aunt's & uncle's didn't know . But as they resembled grandpa's biological kids (mum's half siblings) and were of a similar age, he clearly had been delivering more than the milk!!!!

My DF, aunts and uncle discovered that my DGM was 81, not 80, when she died, had been married before, and had a different first name!

Some of these stories are heartbreaking.

It's really making me think about stuff I need to get rid of! I've been keeping a diary for over ten years. It's not one of those 'today I got up at 7 and went shopping' type diarys but one I just write in very few weeks/months with what's happening in life in general. Reading back on it, it's the most miserable depressing thing I've ever read. It makes me realise just how unhappy I've been for the last 10 years. The worst thing is that I sounded so positive that things would get better when I first started the diary (17 at the time) I really wouldn't want my kids to find that when I'm gone but at the same time I can't bring myself to get rid of it.

The strangest thing that I and my eldest brother found out after our mother died was that our father's ashes from 30 years ago had been in the safe keeping of our other brother.He had kept them in his attic and neither our our mother or himself had mentioned it.

I found a letter recently from my late aunt to my late mother giving advice on getting a termination.From the date it had to have been me.

Well, you can take some comfort that she decided against it cowshindtail

My dh thinks we should plant things for our kids to find lol

Clearing my gp's house & found a letter from my gf. My gm had a still birth at 7 months & one of his busy body sisters wrapped baby in a towel & told him to bury it in the back garden & never tell my gm where it was 😱

A great uncle lost his first wife in WW2 when the house was bombed (he was at work at the time). He remarried, moved to a new area, and had a family, who only found out about the first wife after his death.

Mix56

Third line from bottom: you want to be in harmony ??

He handed me there picture saying, “Oh god, it’s not mom is it”? The picture was of a woman with legs akimbo, and judging by the room furnishings and her hairstyle I judged it to have been taken in the 1950’s or 60’s - before he met MIL. The sibs were all aware there must have been pictures of their mother in there some where. She loved having her picture taken - lol

Im sorry, but Im confused. - how could he have taken a picture of your MIL in the mid 50's or 60's if he didn't meet her till the 70's.

Mix56 Your mum's letter from page 7

Here's what I could get:

What a load of cod's
wallop
Maybe I confused him
with the devil
Desperate
I am right
Don't you ever ever
do that again
I am starting to (repel?)
...(people)? I am trying to
..(act)?
I'll probably be seeing
you at work
To give you control
You want to be in harmony
with you sometimes
The granite??

Vertically, left to right:
and you
lack some sort
(word cut off: of?) compromise
(next two lines I can't decipher at all)
everybody's talking
about your baby

She sounds mightily pissed off with someone...looks like notes to remember points she wants to confront them with.

You've all made the Mail..