There’s something so painfully strange about seeing someone’s things after they’re gone. Really, it doesn’t matter what it is, like a jacket over a chair, a mug in the cabinet, a half-used bottle of shampoo, a drawer full of receipts, chargers, pens, and random little everyday objects that now feel impossible to touch. For a lot of people, they joke about how great it would be to inherit something from someone, be it money, a house, or belongings in general.
But then, when it happens, when you’re grieving, it’s hard to describe how hard it is to manage, because you barely can. No one can manage, but you’re supposed to. You’re supposed to just accept that the world will keep turning, people will go about their business, and you’re supposed to do that too while at the same time grieving.
So, when you get boxes of stuff- boxes upon boxes- are you supposed to deal with this when there’s just no bandwidth there for the time being?
Don’t Force Yourself to Make Every Decision Right Away
It can feel like everything needs an answer immediately. Keep it, donate it, sell it, give it to family, throw it away, sort it properly, be practical, be sentimental, be calm, be efficient. Like, okay, that’s a lot to ask from someone who’s barely managing the day.
Some belongings can wait. Unless there’s a deadline because of a lease, a house sale, legal paperwork, or another urgent situation, there’s no need to decide the emotional value of every single item right away. And you should also just keep in mind here that grief can make a regular sweater feel like a museum piece, and it can make a box of old kitchen tools feel weirdly impossible to handle. So, just giving it time doesn’t mean avoiding it forever; it just means not forcing clarity before it exists.
Put things Somewhere Safe Until You Have the Bandwidth
Well, if you’re in a hurry at least, this is something you should maybe consider, especially if stuff has to get out of their house by a certain time. While you’re working, taking care of yourself, your family, managing this person’s death, and grieving, you’re hit with their stuff to manage. It’s hard to juggle all of that, so you might want to look for somewhere to put it until you have time to get around to it.
Which sounds easy, and it might be, but it also might not be. Like, if it’s a whole house of stuff that you’re inheriting, then you might want to put it into a storage facility until you have it in you to get to it, but if it’s just a few boxes, then those might be able to fit into a spare room for the time being.
Make a “Not Ready Yet” Pile
Some things won’t have an obvious answer, and yeah, that’s fine. No, really it it, some times its so easy to toss something into the trash or to sell or donate it, but not everything. You might be handed some super sentimental stuff, like a birthday card you sent to them, or maybe a box of books that they loved, just things that are very “them”- and you don’t need to do anything to that stuff yet if you don’t want to. If you want to take time once you’ve accepted their death, then sure, why rush yourself?
