I liked your thoughts.I remember in the old days when stores would sell a diary that included a lock and little key! I never kept one...my dad died when I was two,back in 1968,so I have no memory of him.My mom told a lot of crazy stories about  him,though.He was like the guy in the song,"Poppa was A Rolling Stone."He was always getting thrown in jail,chasing hookers, couldn't keep a steady job,getting drunk every day on Mad Dog and Wild Irish Rose (Horrible cheap wine that would get you into bar fights!)...He had been a Master Sergeant in the army.Joined in 1940 and after eighteen years got kicked out.I'm turning fifty nine in August and I still don't know the reason for his dishonorable discharge.He never told my mom what he did...My mom died right after my girlfriend found out she was pregnant,two weeks later... I kept thinking of Issa,the haiku poet:
Mariko
Your life hasn't 
Been in vain
Something like that ...it was so fitting an epitaph....hard drinking killed her,too.Hell,both my parents were drunks... I somehow managed to sober up in 1993...most all my friends from childhood are dead,victims of life,my family too.So I can understand your pain....