Why did she keep the letter?

[Ozmi]

When I was a teen, my life circumstances weren't good. I wrote to an aunt asking for help for something specific. She was great & helped. End of story. This aunt lived alone, had a tidy well kept home & didn't have clutter anywhere. She has died now, 35yrs since I wrote the letter. Her house is being cleared & my letter was found in the top drawer of her bedside cabinet. The drawer wasn't crammed with stuff so as you'd forget the letter. There was only a book, a lipsalve, and eyemask & my letter in there. Now I feel shamed by the family for the contents of that letter. It was private and they shouldn't have seen it. Why did my aunt keep it? It had no relevance to our later lives. I don't understand.

@Ozmi

There is no inheritance for those talking about it. Her estate went directly to her dc. What I've realised now, having time for reflection, is that receiving the letter hurt me badly & took me directly back to a time when I suffered a lot. If I hadn't been given the letter back, I wouldn't have remembered it or the flood of memories. It was unnecessesary to return it.

Was the letter returned specifically to shame you? Or was it returned because the other option was to bin it and that would have meant you wouldn’t have known your aunt kept it? As a relative I’d return something like that as I wouldn’t have felt it was my decision to throw something away that had been kept for sentimental reasons.