Privacy After Death

[DropCloths]

DFIL died last year and DH has been sorting through his papers.

One file was labelled "private" and I was slightly surprised that DH went through it as he had all the others- it contained some slightly personal medical things and some personal diaries from when DFIL had counselling. Nothing earth-shattering but definitely the kind of thing that (in life) you'd think of as private and not want others to read without your permission.

I'm not really looking for views on DH's decision to read it- his father, his decision. (I haven't read it). But it has made me think more broadly about privacy after death. I have all sorts of things I wouldn't want people to read after I am gone- again, nothing earth-shattering but things like diaries where I've written very personal things, or times when I've been letting off steam but what I've written doesn't represent an accurate reflection of my feelings over all (eg I wrote a diary when DC were small where I said a lot about the difficulties of adjusting to motherhood. I absolutely loved being with my DC when they were little but if you only read the diaries you wouldn't get that impression and reading the diaries might be very hurtful and misleading for DC).

Would you treat diaries etc after someone has died as private, as they are in life? Would you chuck them away without reading or would you read them? Are you planning to chuck any of your own private papers away to avoid loved ones seeing them after your death, or does it not bother you?

RoadSignFool’s mum sounds like she was a helluva lady - respect to her memory!
I think you youngsters forget that my and presumably her generation were the original Women’s Libbers, bra burning, hippy, summer of love, first generation to have reliable contraception, etc. And being over 70 doesn’t mean we suddenly became prim miseries.
I think you should celebrate your mum’s love of life and positivity about her sexuality, rather than being upset about it.

Would you treat diaries etc after someone has died as private, as they are in life?

Yes probably. I also imagine other people's diaries are quite tedious.

I would go through a file marked "private" though, as there might be things you'd need.

As someone with stage IV cancer trying to work out practicalities on another thread this is veeery interesting.

I do worry about some things in my diaries as I’d hate to hurt DH, for example. Like a PP said, a snapshot not the entire picture. But I’d also like to leave them for DD who is not quite 5 yet. I draw and sketch a lot so my journals are colourful mix of that too & lots of positive stuff about how much I love her. After diagnosis I started to keep them more in mind of her reading them someday. Potentially quite interesting as she won’t remember much of it, especially Covid etc.

but I do wonder about editing them and taking out hurtful things.

but I also think oh well I’ll be dead, does it matter? As long as it’s balanced out by nice stuff.

I’m currently with DM and this thread has prompted me to warn her to remove anything private! She said there’s nothing to worry about. So now I think she’s boring 😁

I have my grandmothers diaries and did read a bit of them. Now wondering if I shouldn’t have. But they are just all about what she had for her dinner and what she won at the bingo.

@Babdoc and I don't think you have any right to dictate how people feel about their family and bereavements. It's nothing to do with 'this generation' or thinking older people are fuddy duddies. In the same way I don't want my parents to think about or know about my sex life, I don't want to think or know about theirs

Posted too soon - I would also destroy diaries and things that were clearly personal without reading them. It would be disrespectful to their memory IMO. Papers marked private might still need to be dealt with, so I would scan them and look more closely if needed.

I’ve also got my grandma’s diary, along with ration card etc & a few bits. It doesn’t have extensive thoughts and feelings written in it but a few notes on what she did and bought and cooked that are interesting to me. But I was thrilled as an adult to realise the dots and asterixes were her tracking her period. I did same in my diary at the time (pre phone) and it was a thrilling as well as a mundane, comforting link with a woman who helped raise me, who I had really loved , but who died when I was 10.

DH’s Gran wrote a diary all through her adult life, they have been shared amongst her DC. But she was quite open about what she wrote and would sometimes look back on certain days to see what she had written

Think if you have something you don’t want family members to read you need to leave specific instructions for them. Saying private on them doesn’t probably cover it as could have financial papers etc which might be needed for probate etc

I think it's about considering the effect those things might have on those left behind who see them without context. So for example, you might keep your first boyfriend's poems and pictures as a sweet reminder of a specific time in your life and no more. But your children of the husband you were married to for forty years, stumbling upon them after your death, might decide that you keeping them meant the first boyfriend was the great love of your life and not their dad.

When my dear Mum passed away , I found all the love letters that my Dad and her had written to each other. There was nothing salacious just proof of their love for each other and how strong their relationship was. There were also lots of little mundane details about my grandparents too.It was very comforting to me and I’ve kept them. As an only child I was very close to my parents and surrounded by their love. I was very lucky.

I think I will pack my sex toys into a box clearly marked, 'Bin without looking.'
My diaries, I reckon my eldest dd would take comfort from them. She is such a full part of my life and may take comfort in how often I write about how excited I am to see her. The menus and trips might trigger happy memories for her.

I didn’t read anything of DH’s but that was my choice to make and I would have been angry if anyone judged that decision either way. If you don’t want things to be read after your death, get rid of them now.

I think if there is something you don’t want others to see upon your death you should destroy it.

Once DC could read reasonably well I binned all things like that as I couldn'tbe sure they wouldn't snoop through my drawers and find things I didn't want them to read.

After my mum died, we found a box of love letters between her and dad from their younger days. We didn’t read them, but when dad died a couple of years ago these letters went into their grave before dad’s coffin was lowered, so they’ll always be between them

I'm going to burn, throw away or erase everything I don't want seen by my loved ones after my death. I don't particularly care about me, I just don't want them to have to deal with anything they don't want to deal with.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned a digital purge. Would you be happy if someone found your MN log in after you died? 😀

She actually died in her early sixties @Babdoc and had become depressed and borderline alcoholic due to the death of my Dad from leukaemia in his fifties then the death of her “second chance at life” partner at the hands of a drunk driver 15 years later. She used to weep to me over the phone about how lonely she was. So forgive me for not seeing a massive rubber dick as a wonderful celebration of her sexuality a la Samantha Jones, cheers all the same.

My aunt left diaries, in which she had recorded her observations of other family members. Her SIL, rather unwisely decided to read them. Aunt wrote wittily but it was a bit like eavesdropping, SIL read nothing good about herself 😂

I would hold onto diaries though not read them until well after house clearance and probate were done. Hate to find out I had burned passwords or the combination number for the safe!

We have a filing box with all the useful stuff clearly marked. DCs know where it is and are welcome to look any time.

Private things get pruned out from time to time. Neither DH or I are keen to embarrass DCs if we can avoid it.

Personally I have nothing I am bothered by but I do think you raise very good points and questions

I would never read someone's diary even after death but may read medical things if I was a blood relative for my medical reasons if I felt it important enough too

So if there is an actual reason to I would otherwise no

After our mother died, my brother read her diaries and told me some of what was in them. They show in tragic and upsetting detail her descent into the deep psychosis from which she never recovered, which started to develop when we were small children. I couldn't bring myself to read that, it was more than enough living through it. My brother told me that she also wrote about me being sexually assaulted when I was six, by a hotel night porter. I'd always had a feeling that something happened when I was a child and this confirmed it, but I found it incredibly upsetting.

I regard diaries as deeply personal and am not comfortable with reading the private thoughts of someone known to me, even if they are dead. As a teenager, a BF found and read my diary and then took me to task over what I'd written. I felt so violated.

Swedish Death Cleaning - get rid of anything you don't need or don't want people to see.

Indeed! I’m on several groups. Yet to do the clearing though