After I requested my mom what she would possibly like for her birthday this yr, she rapidly texted again: Nothing. We’re downsizing.
My dad and mom already reside in a small home — a former fishing cabin on the sting of a lake. Our household moved just a few instances when my brothers and I have been rising up, our childhood belongings pared down at every step. My dad and mom relocated after we graduated from school, stripping their belongings down additional and delivery what furnishings was left to every of us children. I bought the Sellers Hoosier, a wood hutch with a built-in tin flour bin and a steel bread kneading shelf, now greater than 100 years outdated, that my great-grandmother used to bake on.
I puzzled what was left for them to downsize. After which it hit me: Had been they doing the Swedish loss of life clear? “Döstädning: The Light Artwork of Swedish Loss of life Cleansing” is the bestselling e book that sparked a TV present and popularized a decluttering approach that has individuals clear up their belongings earlier than they die, so their family and friends gained’t need to. My mom can be 80 this yr, my father 82 — was there one thing they weren’t telling me?
It turned out that my dad and mom hadn’t seen the present or learn the e book. The true downside was that they’d simply inherited a bunch of “stuff” from my aunt, who has dementia and was shifting into assisted dwelling. My mother informed me about all of the issues my aunt had treasured and saved that now sat in cardboard containers: plates and linen dish towels commemorating the British Royals; Hummel collectible figurines (and a few fakes); newspaper clippings. There have been additionally letters, images, notes and journals. Birthday playing cards. These private gadgets we save, personal and particular solely to us. Our “stuff.” My aunt had by no means meant for anybody else to see it or need to take care of it.
My mom didn’t assume it was applicable to throw any of it away, not whereas my aunt was nonetheless alive. “She requested that among the Princess Diana issues be despatched to you,” Mother confessed. “However,” she whispered, “I don’t assume you’d need it.” She’s proper, I don’t, however the bigger query is: Who does?
The thought of döstädning (and the truth that my aunt clearly didn’t get round to it) made me take into consideration all of the stuff I’ve collected over time. After I moved from New York to Los Angeles greater than 20 years in the past, I couldn’t afford to ship most of my books, so I despatched solely essentially the most valuable, signed editions I had. I additionally despatched the journals I’d written in for years, full of the small particulars of my life in New York Metropolis. What I wore on a primary date. A promotion. An unrequited crush. I used to be shifting to Los Angeles for love, however I couldn’t half with these chronicles of all my earlier relationships.
Now these journals reside within the storage of my household’s Los Feliz home. I do know precisely which plastic bin they’re in, although I haven’t learn them since I left New York. If I have been to die tomorrow, how would I really feel about another person studying them — my dad and mom, my son, my husband? And if I don’t need anybody studying them after I’m gone, why have I saved them?
This led me to ask my family and friends: Is there something that you’d need mechanically destroyed after your loss of life, earlier than your family members discovered it? A lot of the solutions revolved round intercourse: bare images, intercourse toys, pornography, soiled notes and sexts. Different solutions have been extra comical: A pot stash they didn’t need children to seek out; particularly, weed butter within the freezer. The key household in New Jersey (I assume he was joking).
Some individuals revealed that they’d pacts with a good friend or relative to destroy sure gadgets after their loss of life. I beloved the concept of a trusted good friend tossing all my buried secrets and techniques, till I remembered what occurred to Franz Kafka. His good friend and literary executor, Max Brod, had been entrusted to burn all of Kafka’s letters and manuscripts after his loss of life — a want Kafka put in writing, although Brod informed him he wouldn’t do it. Certainly, Brod revealed the fabric, and we’d not have “The Trial,” “The Citadel” or different nice works had he adopted Kafka’s directions.
Did Brod have the suitable to overrule his good friend? Maybe it’s higher to ask if Kafka had the suitable to ask that the manuscripts be destroyed. As an artist, do you owe the world your work, even after loss of life?
My good friend Cecil, a novelist, says: “As artists, it’s our gig to maintain the embarrassing issues that encourage us round. We’re complicated, and hopefully everybody will get that.” She says her journals would make a “boring learn” — but when she requested me to destroy all her works after her loss of life and I discovered some lovely piece of writing amongst them, I’d be torn about methods to proceed.
Though I’ve revealed a memoir and works of fiction that permit readers a glimpse into my life, I nonetheless have components of myself that I don’t need anybody to see. On this age of over-sharing, speaking about what I’d need worn out after my loss of life has given me a greater understanding of döstädning and its enchantment. It’s much less about saving our households from having to do the cleaning-up work, and extra about making use of some small measure of management over how we’re remembered by these we beloved. Maybe it’s additionally a nudge to reside a life worthy of remembering — intercourse toys and all — whereas we nonetheless can.
Cylin Busby is an creator and screenwriter. Her newest e book is “The Bookstore Cat.”
