For Your Eyes Only

Everyone has an indiscretion or two that they hope to take with them to the grave.  The problem with being a writer is that all of mine are written down.  If I were to meet with an untimely death, eventually my husband or my children would open the file drawers in my office and find dozens of notebooks and bright colored folders filled with my secrets.

Perhaps "secrets" is overstating it.  While I haven't written anything I think of as private, there is plenty in this room I'd classify as personal.  Nothing I've written would amaze my family and change their long held ideas of me, but there are a few things that might hurt their feelings.

If I could help it, I guess I'd prefer not to.  Let my husband remember me as the wife who loved every gift he bought me.  Let my boys remember me as the mother who never doubted them.  I have spent 25 years reinforcing a certain reliable persona; I'd prefer not to ruin it with a snarky quip or an insensitive dig that I might have only used for narrative effect.

I have a friend who is also a writer and I've asked her if she has the same worry.  She thinks that her family will not be even slightly interested in her writing and will toss it in the trash.  But I've asked her, if I should die unexpectedly, to come into my office and grab it all.  She has my blessing to go through it and return a sanitized version.

She is concerned that someone will look at it before she can make off with it, and suggests I label my writing drawer with a name to deter interest.  She suggested "Old Tax Information," but the idea that I would be keeping track of tax information, old or new, is so far fetched as to guarantee some interest.

I suggested "Charitable Files," thinking I could fool my family into thinking the files contained the fundraising work I've done for ORT.

"That might work," my friend says, "but what if your husband gives them to the ORT office?" That might turn out very badly.

Then I have a brilliant idea.  I know what my guys will NEVER touch.

In case I drop dead, my girlfriend has been instructed to come into my office and grab all the files out of the top drawer on the far right.  The drawer has a file card taped to the front with the words Feminine Hygiene.