Will you leave a letter?

I’m definitely leaving letters for both my DD I’ve already started drafting them.

Yes. It means so much, doesn’t it.

We all leave a massive amount of information about ourselves on our PCs.

Not quite the same though, is it.

My family has enjoyed so many trips together each leaving special memories. I have always told them someday I wanted to show them the most beautiful place on earth. DH and I will someday have them scatter our ashes together in a national park. I will have an envelope for them and the note will simply say " Look around, this is the most beautiful place on earth".

My parents died in their 50's and I was the oldest child so I had to be organised because everything fell to me. I didnt have much of an idea what my parents wanted because they never really talked about it?. I don't want my daughter to be burdened, upset and struggle like I did if I go suddenly?
So I have written letters to my loved one's and made a list of my funeral wishes along side my will. My husband her step dad is disabled so I want to make everything as easy as possible for her in case I go first.
Hubby decide a few years ago that he doesn't want a funeral at all. Just whisked a way to be cremated and no service. I call it his David Bowie funeral and as much as I don't agree with it and was very angry when he made his decision, I have promised him I will do what he asks. I think my letters will help my loved ones to understand what we want so that my daughter hasn't got to shoulder the responsibility for not having a funeral for him as family are religious and won't approve.

Jennyluck ,I think it is a good idea to write to your estranged son.At least it would make you feel that you have 'spoken ' to him.
I hope you are able to speak to him again in the near future,but a letter is something to show him you love him if you are unable to.

I've never thought about leaving a letter other than for practical matters and I've enjoyed reading the responses. However, some time ago my AC bought me a book entitled 'From Me to You'. The idea is that I complete it to describe their life and then give it back to them. Although it's not necessarily intended for leaving after the parent's death, I may not have completed it much before then! It's prescriptive in the contents so I might change the headings a bit but I'm determined to complete it as it's obviously wanted. Some things I can't remember and I don't want to inadvertently leave a comment they take the wrong way so I need to spend lots of time planning it. Hopefully that will be all I need to leave. Actually I'd prefer a short letter.

My dad didnt leave a letter he wasn't a man who showed emotions but in the 2 weeks leading up to his passing away from the horrible disease that is cancer he grabbed my hand one day as I went to leave and told me he loved me and had since the day he met me as a 4 year old little girl ( I was 24 when he died ) that broke me more than a letter could have done probably because I was 7 month pregnant and he wanted to make sure I knew how much he loved me and always had even though he didn't say it , still makes me cry just thinking about it 18 years later

My grandmother, who was a very lovely lady, knitted me a baby shawl for our first baby. She did it after we got married but before I got pregnant. I didn't know about it. She wrapped the gift and gave it to my mum to give to me before the first birth. In the meantime she died. She also left a letter saying she wished us a very happy life and the shawl was knitted with much love. It made me cry but all 5 of our children were wrapped in the shawl.

When my father was dying, shortly before one Christmas, he was upset that he couldn’t get out to buy my mother a present.

So she said ‘Write me a letter,’ which he did. He was a v good letter writer - for years she’d kept all the letters he’d written her during WW2 and was very upset when they were lost during a move.

For ages after he died she kept that last letter under her pillow. Sadly, though, it later went missing - evidently thrown out with sundry other stuff after she succumbed to dementia.?

Mind you the dementia did at least erase her former grief. When she was mid-stage and I showed her a photo of him, she just said very vaguely, ‘Oh, yes, did he die?’ Not upset or bothered at all.

My daughter died last December, aged 47, after a two and half year right against a brain tumour. Early on that year she found her son and partner were expecting a child. She fought to stay alive to see her first grandchild born and she did. Whilst her parents will talk about Mel, they don't know a lot about her early life and I am in the process of making a memory box of photos, school reports etc., P!us writing a letter all about her life and many of the things she did and loves she has lived.i will give this toner parents for her to read and look at in her teenage years.Sometimes it is important to write a letter, but where possible say it whilst alive.