As some of you may know, my oldest brother died recently. As he was unmarried, childless, and lived alone, it fell upon his siblings–specifically my baby sister and me–to clean out his apartment, a story I will not relate because it’s depressing. During this process, we came across a good number of bound notebooks. Some were basically ledgers, detailing how much money he’d donated to or raised for various Christian ministries; some were poems he was writing; some appeared to be personal journals, including one which by the binding was a Twelve Step Diary.
My sister and I are very close, but in regards to that last category we were of different minds. Our brother died suddenly and, though his death seems to be of natural causes, the precise cause is still unknown to us. (Autopsy results are not available nearly as quickly in real life as on television.) One of us – oh, hell, I won’t be coy. My sister wanted to read through the journals to see if our brother had any inkling of his illness, any idea that death was coming. I disagreed. It didn’t seem right to me to read any of the obvious journals. We didn’t need them to sort out his finances, and it seems to me that even in death we should respect his privacy. (Please note that baby sister was much closer to our brother than I ever was.)
I probably wouldn’t, but I know others in my family would be knocking each other over to snoop through whatever they found.
This is why I won’t keep any kind of journal.
If they had their way they wouldn’t even wait until I was dead.
After my aunt’s mother died some people read her journal. Everybody thought she was such a quiet little pious Christian lady. Not according to her journal, seems she had a wild side that she kept well hidden. Then again maybe it was a fantasy.
I would, just because I’m a curious busybody and the dead guy’s not going to care. I don’t know if it’s the “right” thing to do, but I wouldn’t have any qualms about it.
I would only do it if I was the closest living relative. If he had kids or a wife who didn’t want me to read the journals, of course I wouldn’t. But it sounds like you and the sis are the closest living relatives, so in my opinion it’s up to you two (individually and together) to decide what to do with them.
I would feel like it wasn’t the right thing to do; I would start to do it anyway, and then I would be sorry that I had started and stop, would be my guess.
You are the administrator of his estate. You should skim his diaries looking not for the cause of death but for surprises, like a hidden child, and for his post-death desires. You might even find a will in there.
Not as long as anybody who might be mentioned in it is still alive. Your brother might have had lovers or enemies who are still around. You’ll be learning intimate details of their lives as well as his without their knowledge or permission. Strikes me as rather voyeuristic and skeevy.
If I were your brother, I’d want the closest family member to read (and keep) my diary. I wouldn’t prefer a distant brother with some degree of animosity to read the diary. I’d suggest your sister keep and read the diaries.
The privacy of the dead person wouldn’t matter - they’d be dead - but like **Scumpup **said, the diary may contain many details about people still living. *Their *privacy would be affected.
So we’re clear, this is a poll, not a request for advice. I’ve already decided neither to read the journals nor to give my sister a hard time for doing so.
I not only would; I have. My FIL always did a daily journal and for 30+ years I was curious what was in them. After he and my MIL passed, we found the box of them (going back to like 1962) and I just had to.
Actually they were pretty dull - mostly about weather and what he did that day.
I have a friend who, reading through her mother’s letters after her death, was shocked and upset to learn that her mother had been engaged to another man before marrying her father. Afterwards she really wished she’d never read any of the letters.
My mother kept a journal of her last bout with cancer. After she died, my sisters and I had to decide what to do with it. I read it. Let’s just say my mother’s perceptions were altered by the cancer’s pain and the treatments.
Somebody probably needs to read your brother’s journals to see if there’s anything important in them, but it should be someone who isn’t emotionally invested.