When my father died, I hacked into his email. It didn’t take me too long. After all, he came from a generation where combining a name and a year of birth is considered a safe password (it’s not!). And yet, I am grateful that I was able to do it.
Canva AI prompt: A blond lady wearing a silver tiara sitting at a desk and hacking into a computer. We are looking at her in profile. Colourful pop art drawing
Access to his email allowed me to move ownership of utility accounts and subscriptions to my mother, significantly reducing the number of phone conversations we had to have with different service providers. Trying to convince customer service to terminate a phone contract because someone you loved just died, while grieving, is not something I’d wish on anyone.
So, what happens when I die?
Who is your family? Who do you trust?
My mother has found her feet again. She is back to working as a hospice volunteer, she does aqua gym and takes trampoline lessons twice a week. She’s training to become a tour guide in her city, and she takes her little red car to visit friends all over Germany. She’s thriving.
And my brother has all her passwords in a little password book.
He keeps an eye on her digital life, and I help her keep on top of the physical stuff. After all, I have a history of helping people declutter, and helping my mom doing it regularly has reminded me about why I love the process so much.
It’s not about getting rid of stuff. It’s about evaluating where you are right now in your life, what you want for your life, and then acting on it. Part of that journey you can do alone, and part of it is better travelled with family or friends.
And I cannot stress this enough: I come from an extremely tight-knit family, and they all live 1,500 km away. None of my brothers can sweep in should something happen, so I have invested time and energy into my local community. There are people here I trust enough to tell them where my passwords are stored should the need arise.
The digital and the physical
At this point in my life, I own more than 100 things. And yet, having moved house every 18-24 months has helped me to keep the clutter at bay. Putting things into boxes is a clarifying exercise, something you can emulate without having to actually move house. Tackle one drawer, one space at a time, and decide what is worth keeping, and what has overstayed its welcome.
I remember looking at a gadget in my dad’s office and thinking, “Did he keep this on purpose, or is this something he forgot to throw out”? I wished some of his stuff came with a little note about what it meant to him. A picture with some memories written down would have been helpful.
On the other flipside, Google Photos tells me I have 20,000+ images in my account. No one is EVER going to wade through all of these pictures! And there’s no way that I am going to automate the clean-up (too risky), OR do it myself all in one go (too intense).
So instead, many nights I just go back to this day last year, two years ago, three years ago, and reduce those days to a couple of shots that make sense. I don’t need 20 pictures of my kids going down the same slide. Three or four candid shots are enough to keep the memory.
As an added benefit, this practice makes me reach out to people I haven’t talked to in years, because they show up in a picture. Win-win.
