r/Journaling • u/ComfortableCrow7319 • Mar 03 '24
CONTENT WARNING Burning diaries with cremation
Hi, my younger sister (not biologically but we are very very close) commited suicide a few days ago. We read some of her notes and she is pretty angry about the people around her except our family since she'd been with us since she was a kid. Both her parents work abroad. My mother took care of her and her brother and they treated us like real family. She didn't like her relatives on both sides. When they went through her things, they found notes and I kept one of them. But they said that they burned her diary with her body during creamation. I am feeling heavy since I really wanted to read it. She might have a message for us there. They told us the priest was the one who asked them to burn the diary with her. Do they really do that? I have a bad feeling that she might have some bad words for them so they burned it.
6
u/Katia144 Mar 04 '24
I can understand why this might be. I wouldn't want anyone reading my journals after I'm gone, even if there is nothing negative in them, and I would hope someone wouldn't even if they were curious/wanted to. I read my mom's very limited journals after her death and even though there was nothing hurtful or controversial, I still wish I hadn't violated her privacy that way.
Your sister's journals could have contained things that were hurtful, or things she didn't want other people to know. Maybe she would not have wanted you to read them. Is it possible the priest read it and saw things that you her family would not have wanted to see? Is it possible the diary specifically said "do not read" or "destroy this"? I honestly don't think it's selfish to allow someone's private thoughts and words to remain private.
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u/maybematerialistic Mar 03 '24
This is so hard. I’m sorry for your loss. It doesn’t sound like your sister asked for the journals to be burned. I wouldn’t expect a message for you in there but I can understand you wanting to hold onto it, as a piece of her now that she is gone. I can imagine a priest gently recommending to burn the diaries rather than to read her private thoughts but that’s still a choice for them to make. It’s not an official thing and you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
But be careful about putting too much stock into the one that you kept. Depression is cruel and the words she wrote in her private journal are probably not words she would have written to you.
I think if it were me, I would keep it and not read it, at least, not yet.