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?

Peanuts is the best bit in that paper.

Voodoo doll

habibihabibi my dad only found out from the burial records, I believe the baby was born alive, otherwise I don't think he would have had a burial. It was quite a surprise to my dad and his older sister, grandma had never said a word about the baby.

Pregnancy Scan pictures.

Found by my brother after my mother died.

My brother came bursting into the room I was sorting stuff in and was initially pleased as he thought they were him. Then he did the maths & realised they were too old.

Then he realised they were made after I was born and that there was something odd going on.

I had to tell him about my mother's late miscarriage when I was about 3 of which I only had vague memories. I remembered because my grandparents came to stay for a while as she was on bed rest to try to preserve the pregnancy.

My poor DBro was pretty upset about it and is still cross with my parents & I for not telling him. I hadn't realised he didn't know.

Aren't families odd sometimes.

Bizarrely a jam jar of real adult teeth

My MIL had a matchbox full of DH's milk teeth. She'd kept them all for 40 years or so!!

B&W photo of a man in uniform in DM's purse: my aunt confirmed it was a former boyfriend, a soldier who had died in WW2. Wonder if my Dad ever knew?

When my DF died we found a tiny bottle of mercury. Nobody seemed able to advise us about how to dispose of it safely!

Oh and a winning lottery ticket - only £10 though

Petalflowers It’s just all so sad. I understand different times with different views. But regardless of those views it must have personally hurt a lot and they had to not show it. Or maybe they were ok with it because that was the done thing. I can only view it with modern eyes though and it’s heartbreaking.

Quack -my dm has always seemed okay with it. I think it was probably the done thing. Also, in those days, they didn’t have all the scans etc, and maybe didn’t feel so connected to the baby in the way people are today. Ie. The baby didn’t really become a person until it was born, unlike today.

This also worries me.

In my parents' loft are the diaries I kept meticulously from the age of 9 to about 25.

I don't even want to read them again never mind anyone else.

I am not sure what to do with them, I don't want to throw them away but some of them are just so cringey and awful I can't bear it!

Petalflowers That’s a good point. I’m glad she seemed ok.

Tilly35 my mind is boggling at finding 50 perfectly wrapped poos under the stairs. Surely that's a typo!?!

@PositivelyPERF

I remember giving our ward patients alcohol. However it was prescribed by the pharmacy! Some had sherry before dinner as it was an appetite stimulant. One or two had whiskey.

This was an orthopaedic ward, about 25 years ago in a very prominent teaching Hospital.

Not after a death, but we've been tidying up MIL's house after she went into hospital. We found a full set of freezer drawers, still in the packaging - not even for the current freezer!

I can recall men on my grandads ward being given a glass of stout to help build them up

@Merryfeckingchristmas

That's horrific 😱 imagine your poor dad having to live with that 😢😢😢

Merryfeckingchristmas Oh god that’s awful. He should never have been put in that situation and his poor wife, the past seems so cruel sometimes.

When DH’s grandmother died her son (DH’s Uncle) found an old biscuit tin in her bedroom which had a collection of about 20 different regimental cap badges from WWII in it.

She was in the WAAF during the war and was a bit of a good time girl by all accounts (confined to barracks on several occasions for “misbehaviour”, married at 21 with DH’s dad born 5 months after the wedding!) we think they were, er, tokens of remembrance from her gentleman friends at the time 😜

My dad died after a car accident when I was 18. Mum and I had to go through his filing cabinet looking for things like insurance paperwork and found (a) around £40,000-worth of cheques from companies he'd done work for that hadn't been banked (he was a freelance business troubleshooter) hidden down the back of the drawers in a grubby white cloth bag which we nearly threw out because we thought it was rubbish and (b) files on both of us. I don't know what was in Mum's, she's never told me and she burnt it after she'd read it, but mine had all my school grades, his thoughts on my behaviour, what my future career should be, my university applications and so on. There was also a file on the dog!!! (He'd never wanted a dog and Mum simply went out and bought a cocker spaniel puppy one day - it caused some friction...)

He'd done his National Service in Kenya, fighting in the Mau Mau rebellion, and had brought a couple of guns back as souvenirs. My uncle had a friend who was a police officer and sent him round to have a look, as Mum was a bit concerned they weren't terribly legal. (Dad had a shotgun licence, but these looked rather more serious.) So this guy turned up obviously thinking Mum is panicking over an air rifle and then went slightly pale when he found two semi-automatic machine guns wrapped in tennis sweaters! They were donated to Dad's regimental museum in the end.

My aunt died last year and had kept diaries from her teenage years right to her death aged 50. My mam though that no one should have an opportunity to read her private thoughts and the family agreed to wrap them up in brown paper and put them in the coffin to be buried with her. The polebarers had quite a job carrying the coffin, as it was at least two times the weight of her!

My mum had two late miscarriages, and I remember my grandmother telling me that the babies were buried in the garden. Neither Mum nor Dad ever really spoke about it.

After my grandmum died we opened a box that contained all the funeral instructions for both my late granddad and my grandmum. They were really precise and saved us a lot of hassle.

Also in that box was a packet of slides, which we found a bit odd. We held them against the light and found they were pictures of my grandparents in the nude. It surprised us to no end as both were usually quite prude.

When my FIL died at 78 we had the job of clearing out everything MIL was not interested. Cleaning the car we found in the rim of the spare tyre a packet of condoms, the car was only a few months old. We had such a giggle MIL had thrown him out of the bedroom 40 years before, so we speculated who was the lady friend. He always had a twinkle in his eye for the ladies.

A small plastic bottle of water labelled holy water (my gran)