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Originally Posted by chuckfinly
I was not sure where to put this. It did not quite fit the seeing family thread and I almost put it in the seeing things you are not supposed to thread but I would like to know if anyone has similar experiences and thought it was a bit unique. First a little background... As I have said before, I now own the homestead/ranch that has been in the family since the late 1800's. The original wing of the house is over 120 years old. I have a storage building built in the 1940's that has stuff that has been left from generations past and from time to time collects more family treasures. There are boxes and boxes of pictures in there among other things.
Last year my aunt who I was very close to died unexpectedly. She had no kids and was divorced. She was not very close to her siblings and I guess they figured I was the closest to her so they brought all of her stuff to my house and it went in this out building. It sat there for about a year before I decided to go through it last week. She had hundreds of pictures of her cats and flowers. There were pictures of me and my cousins as kids and all kinds of other stuff.
Here is where it gets interesting... There was a boot box (like a larger shoe box) that was full of nude pictures. I did not go through all of them but there were pictures of her with several different guys and by herself. Some were hard core and others were just posing, in the shower, dressing, and stuff like that. Most of them seemed to be from the late 70's and 80's with maybe a few into the 90's. More than half were polaroid and some were printed. I feel creepy saying this but she was a looker back in her day. She had quite the black bush in the earlier ones. I am talking thick like the old Demi Moore photos. She was trimmed up in some of the later ones. I felt weird looking through them like I was disrespecting her and put them away. I have not decided if I am going to save them or throw them out. Don't ask me to post them... even though she is gone, I cannot do that to her.
I started going through boxes that had come from other relatives as well. I found a box with a scrapbook from a great aunt (different one than above) who worked at an embassy in South America in the late 1940's to early 1950's. There were some black and white topless beach pictures of her in there.
I know this is not that exciting or thrilling but I thought it was worth sharing. Has anyone else ever been in a similar situation where you end up with photos of deceased relatives? What did you do with them? Did they turn you on or was your reaction more like mine? Have you thought about this for yourself? I know I have. As a firefighter I see people die unexpectedly almost daily. I make sure that I do not leave anything I would not want my kids to see where it would be found. I know if my aunt knew I saw those pictures she would be mortified.
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She may have left them behind for you to enjoy and appreciate after she was gone with no risk of embarrassment to her . Keep them and enjoy privately without sharing.