discovered secrets

I was reading an essay last night where the writer worried, that if she died randomly somehow during the day, how her family would react to her apartment. The obvious things were in there; such as worry about how cluttered something would look, where all the dust would be found, how sad the fridge would look, and so on when the family was packing things up. Her greatest fear related to a secret collection she had of plastic ponies stuffed under her kitchen sink, each left over from a previous relationship now gone bad (why she ends up with them or receives them is a bit complicated, and not really relevant to this).

It made me think in similar ways, what would my family think if they were packing up my things tomorrow? What would they find that would make them puzzled, what would make them wonder if they really knew me, what would make no sense? Would anything make them worried? Amused? Distraught?

As I was thinking about it, I had a hard time imagining anything on the level of the writer's plastic ponies...something that the family would have no clue about. Its not that I don't have idiosyncrasies and weird fetishes, I have plenty, Jackie could go on for hours I bet at how many of them completely annoy her. But I would have to say that most of them are out in the open, so I don't think anyone would be surprised. I have some baseballs I collect, pretty much everyone that knows me knows that I love baseball. I have lots of books on a variety of topics, again, not surprising for how much I read. There would not be anything substantial, nothing collection like. There is the possibility of various random things that I have drawing curious glares, small things that have been held on to for whatever reason.

There's the European money (French, Italian, Greek) I have from my trips, which are now worthless due to the Euro, sitting inside a small chest in our downstairs spare room. There's the tiny stuffed animal SJC puma, that I have no idea when or how I got (truly can't remember at all), but can't bring myself to get rid of it. An assortment of pins collected over the years on my dresser that I never use. But there's nothing on the level of plastic ponies hidden under the kitchen sink. In fact, the only thing I can think of now that would draw a confused face would be a set of artfully designed custom chopsticks, complete with their matching carrying case, in my nightstand. I received this years ago from my sister, but I can't even remember when, where, or under what circumstances.

Anyway, I find it interesting to think about - what things have you kept that if found after you died, would make no sense to those closest to you? And is it a good thing if you have many of these types of things? Is it good if you don't have any thing that would fall into this type of category.