Sorting Through Belongings After Death: Working with Family

This week we've been talking about the daunting task of sorting through a loved one's belongings after their death. Proceeding with this task is a very personal decision, and once you start, you may find it more emotionally complex than you anticipated. Objects big and small can trigger a wide range of emotions, from nostalgia and laughter to tears, longing, and frustration.

You can expect to feel emotional, even when you approach the process at your own pace with supportive family and friends, but what happens when you also have to deal with variables beyond your control? For example, eviction deadlines force you to get rid of things quickly, friends may push you to move on too soon, or family members might cause you to split up effects before you're ready. All these factors, as well as many others, can complicate things exponentially.

Working With Family

We want to take a few minutes to focus on working with family members who have an equal say in the disposition of belongings and property. It would be shortsighted of us not to acknowledge that making such emotionally charged decisions with others can cause tension in even the most cohesive families. At the risk of sounding unhelpful, we will admit we can't offer a solution. Family dynamics are compounded by heightened emotions, personality types, and coping styles in situations like these. Every case is unique; it would be impossible to boil all this down.

We can only recognize that tension, argument, and hurt feelings are common in these situations. However, you may be able to avoid catastrophic arguments and long-term disagreements by making concerted efforts to understand one another and work together. More specifically, we recommend discussing one another's feelings about the process, making efforts to understand differing motivations, searching for a compromise, and planning how you will handle disagreement.

Of course, there are circumstances when all the patience in the world won't heal the wounds caused by deep-seated misunderstanding, greed, inconsiderateness, or complete inability to compromise. However, if everyone wants to keep things peaceful, you at least have a start.

Let's try and break things down a little further.

Sorting Through Belongings After a Death: Working With Family

1. Discuss feelings: 

Chances are, most participants will have some concern, worry, or apprehension about the process. Talking about these ahead of time will allow participants to be heard and better understand each other. The better you understand each other, the easier it will be to work together.

The range of possible emotions run the gamut, but a few examples might include:

"I feel like we're forgetting him."

"It's too hard to go through her clothes."

"Where do we even begin? She had so much stuff."  

"I'm worried about what I might find."

"I can't bear to see any of it thrown away."

"We should distribute things fairly."

When we were cleaning out my grandmother's home years after her death, my sister stayed inside the house while we all sorted through decades-worth of artifacts in the backyard. We were surprised by this reaction and didn't understand why she wouldn't want to help or even claim any objects for herself.

Later I realized that no one had allowed her to say 'I'm not ready' or 'I don't want to do this.' We just told her she had to be there. Had we known her true feelings toward the situation, we may have asked her which objects she'd like us to set aside for her to keep or look through later. Instead, we just assumed she didn't want anything.  Of course, you won't always be able to alleviate the worries and concerns of others, but discussing things ahead of time will at least provide context for behavior and let you know how you can make things easier on one another.

2. Discuss motivations:

This process may become complicated if you are all working towards a different end.  Different motivations will cause people to behave in different ways. Someone who feels pressure to have a space cleared out may push participants to make fast progress or cavalier decisions about what they throw away.

Someone who's motivated to make sure objects are sold for the highest market value will take time looking up prices and may want to hire a professional to help. Yet someone who wants to make sure each object goes to a good home may save everything and make careful decisions about where each object is donated (As an aside, you can read more about what to do with items in the "Give Away" pile here).

Imagine these three people trying to work together. Think of all the arguments that may arise - selling fast vs. waiting for the best price, trashing vs. taking time to donate, moving fast vs. pacing yourself. Knowing motivations will help you to understand why these disagreements keep popping up.

Knowing feelings and motivations may also help you to avoid hurt feelings and misunderstanding. Take the example of a father who wants to clean out his son's room because he feels it's too painful to see it exactly as his son left it. On the other hand, the child's mother likes to be surrounded by her son's things because it makes her feel close to him. If the father starts clearing the room without explaining his reason for doing so, his actions could seem callous and like he's trying to forget or move on.

3. Seek compromise

If you can understand each other by discussing emotions and motivations, you will have a better idea of each person's goal.

Finishing by the end of the weekend

Making sure we do right by our loved one

Selling anything of value

Holding on to reminders

Making it through the day in one piece

Avoiding arguments

When you know what people ultimately want, you can start searching for a compromise that will help manage emotions and meet goals. Maybe you compromise on which items can be sold vs. thrown away. Perhaps you give the family one extra day to complete the task. One person could volunteer to sort through objects that others think will be difficult to deal with. Maybe you stop pushing someone to throw things away and offer suggestions on where they can store them. If both sides are willing to respect each other, choose their battles, and provide concessions, the potential for compromise is endless.

4. Handling disagreement:

When you do find yourself at an impasse, what will you do? I'm willing to bet most families don't decide ahead of time. There is no right or wrong answer, and being judicious won't necessarily avoid anger or hurt feelings. But hey, it won't hurt to try! Here are a few options for handling disagreement....

Take a time out to let people cool off

Call it a day/give it more time

Discuss what your loved one would have wanted

Put it to a vote

Agree that one person (perhaps the official next of kin) will act as the final say

Discuss with a third-party – counselor or lawyer

I hope something we've offered this week helps you move forward with this task when the time comes. If you have a suggestion, we'd love to hear it.

We invite you to share your experiences, questions, and resource suggestions with the WYG community in the discussion section below.