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?

When my mum died in 94 we found some love letters written by my father to her over one summer - when i realised what they were i stopped reading them as dad was still around and it didnt seem right. I read them once dad went and they were lovely and very moving - gave a totally differen t insight to who they were before i came along! Dad also wrote his life story when he retired - bit of a long slog, but he travelled to germany after the war one summer with a friend, the 2 of them on a motorbike!

After my aunty died of cancer my uncle found loads of notes hidden in books, ornaments etc saying "I hated you" "you were a shit husband" knowing that he wouldn't be able to confront her!

I was helping clear out my grandads house earlier this year and found a few years retesting things. Quite a few porn films on vhs and dvd, porn mags. Love letters between Nan and Grandad from when they were having an affair. My Nans stuff was everywhere even though she died 11 years earlier, even fag buts in ash trays!

I found letters from my dad to my mum written from the army in 1944/5 when I was a baby. They are lovely to have.

I forgot the vhs porn film, that had been watched so much that it was really difficult to see what was happening. my eyes !

My dad had woodworking tools, one was a wood turner hence...

Fluffy black handcuffs. Thanks mum!

And 72 flannels. I have no idea.

Nothing to add as haven't had to clear a house fortunately, but this is a really good thread!!

My mum died about 10 years before my dad. When I cleared out my dad's flat after his death I found boxes of letters from one of my mum's old friends who had obviously started writing to my dad after mum died.
They seemed to have written to each other regularly and a friendship had developed. They lived quite far apart, but had obviously met for lunch a couple of times. She must have propositioned my father, as there was a piece of paper on which he had drafted a response all about how he was sorry, but it was too soon after mum's death, he hoped they could stay friends etc etc. Then was a short apology letter from her, but nothing else after that.

I had such mixed feelings. I was shocked as I knew nothing about it. I felt proud that he was loyal to my mum to the end, but I also felt sad that he perhaps felt he had to pass up on a bit of happiness with someone else in his later years . If he'd told me about it I'm sure I would have said 'go for it.'

laddylobglocks that is both incredible sad and clever at the same time - hope the secret of doing that gave her some strength (assuming he was a bad husband and if he wasn’t then )

so.many.women have had to live miserably lives due to lack of financial or social freedoms not afforded to women until relatively recently

Linus33

The traditional thing to do in this situation is to burn them.

I found a lock of strawberry blond hair which I worked ut was my aunt's. She died of meningitis when she was 12. I begged my dad and grandma's forgiveness when I reverentially placed it in the bin.

Dh’s Grandma turned out to have been 9 years older than her children thought.

She had reinvented herself whilst in a displaced persons camp in 1945. Everyone she had ever known was dead. So why not?

After my DGM my mother and aunt were sorting through her paperwork and pieced together that she had lied about her age to get married, and forged/altered her birth certificate.

She was only 15. My grandfather was 31.

DGM died that should say...

When my mum died I found a letter her Dad wrote to her when she was on honeymoon with my DF. Her DF had an amazing way with words and they were very close, she loved him very much.

Until that point she had lived at home with her parents and her DF was describing how he missed her. He wrote:

'every room echos with your silence'

It was very poignant as I was reading it in her home which echoed with her silence.

When sorting out my dads house we found wedding photos. Of his first marriage! Didn't know that he had been married as a teenager!

Oh @S0upertrooper. That's given me a wobbly lip!

When Dad did we found over 20 guns in the house, some live but mostly replicas. A friend with a gun licence came and took them away for us.

One posters' comment has made me think about my diaries, my social services files and legal documents and whether I should get rid of them. The diaries are such that I wouldn't want anyone ever to read them but they were extremely important in the court cases related to the latter.

I have kept everything of my children's as I have barely a thing from my childhood but dd said last week that I'm a hoarder and she wants to get rid of stuff soon, namely school books and work.

A postcard that my mum had sent to her mum in the early 50's from Geneva, telling her that she and my father had just got engaged (they were on holiday). They were married for 61 years.
A mystery painting. My parents died very close together, and we cleared the house and a lot of stuff went to auction. There was a small oil painting that none of us could recall my mum buying. It sold for over 15k. She would never have spent a lot of money like this (or even a tenth of it) on a picture, so we can only think she struck lucky there (or rather, we did). It was hanging over a door in a spare bedroom, and none of us had really noticed it, it was so insignificant.

I discovered my parents were actually my grandparents and my brother, my biological dad.
I was adopted as a baby, which i knew but they never disclosed the circumstances .
Sadly my brother was killed in active duty before my parents passed so it's all a big mystery.

DH's grandad had written his life story in some exercise books before he died (hed been ill for a couple of years prior) - they make really interesting reading (living on a farm as a child, joining the navy, courting DH's nanna during the war, getting married etc)

My grandparents 'Golden' Wedding was actually their 49th My Uncle assumed that as he was 49 about 6 months after their it wedding that was their 50th. They never corrected him... (it was the 1930s)

My Dad and Uncle discovered some paperwork when DGM died that revealed that their Uncle was in fact their older brother and had been born when DGM was only 15 in the 1940’s.

For some reason it caused a huge family falling out and they never spoke to their uncle/brother again. It’s not really talked about but from what I do know, he had no idea either that he was DGM’s son so I don’t know why they all fell out. This was in the 80s. He turned up at my Uncle’s funeral 20 years later after seeing it in the newspaper and my Dad refused to even acknowledge him. Which is sad.

That is so sad Whatififall