Death Cleaning

The last time I wrote a blog post was October 31st, 2024. I was on a "newsbreak" then, which I stayed on for a short time, but it's important to face the fresh horrors, so I went back in the world after a few weeks, although I "curate" more now. I went to beauty school in Minneapolis (Horst, the Aveda Institute) and lived there for a short time, and the murders have been on my mind. Last night, I had a dream that a man shot me, and although there were medical staff all around, no one came to help. I woke up before I "died" in the dream, but I'm guessing the shootings are haunting my dreams. My heart goes out to the citizens there, and to all of us.

I am more careful about where I get my news these days, and I don't watch the big media outlets anymore, although on occasion PBS Newshour.

If it were up to me, I’d probably cancel our New York Times delivery. We get the paper every single day. My husband still likes the Times, and although he admits they’ve normalized the deranged people in power, he still reads it. We appreciate individual journalists and writers that appear on the pages, but I feel strongly that most mainstream news outlets have not been able to meet the moment we're in now, and many journalists don’t seem to know how to write about pathological liars, conmen (and women), Christian hypocrites, rapists and child molesters––not effectively.

It's Saturday night, January 24th, 2026 and I'm sorting through "stuff" tonight.

Last week, there was a special section in the NYTimes on end-of-life topics called "Let's Talk About Death" which I saved. Ronda Kaysen's page was especially interesting to me. She wrote about “death cleaning”, something I’ve been working on these past few years, focusing on my father's piles of paperwork, his book collection, manuscripts, and an long and incredibly detailed journal he left behind, which he probably didn't want me to read.

The term “death cleaning” was made popular by the Swedish writer Margareta Magnusson, her book was translated around 2018 and became a best seller. We’re all going to die, and it’s better not to burden our surviving loved ones with going through all our stuff, so why not start purging now? Magnusson suggests that leaving behind letters and journals that might offend your children after your death should be tossed out. Too late for me! Although I’m not offended, I’m glad I have my father’s journal, glad I’ve read through it. It’s helped me understand, on a deeper level, what was going on with him, and cleared up some of my own misconceptions.

I’m interested in this concept of clearing out clutter while I’m still healthy, but I’ve noticed, since discovering my late father’s boxes (hidden away for years in his friend Ted’s storage, and after that with the songwriter Larry Bastian in his storage) that I have more trouble tossing out my father’s stuff than I do my own stuff. I’m guessing that’s a form of grief. The feeling I have when I've attempted to throw out his items out in the past is best described as a form of guilt.

I thought of paying someone to go through his boxes with me, but I’d prefer this person to be a writer or a researcher, not a professional organizer. For now, I've decided to try something else. I’ll be writing here, photographing what I’m tossing from the boxes of my father’s paperwork (several large boxes full) and ask my readers to tell me what they are struggling to toss out. Simply contact me and let me know if I can quote you in my next blog or publish pictures of what you are having trouble getting rid of. Perhaps in that way, the lonely chore of death cleaning can be a group effort.

In that spirit, I’ll start with the easy stuff first. For some reason, I held onto my father’s shut off notices, delinquent notices, and over-draft fees. I have a hard time tossing these papers, because they remind me of the chronic financial stress that always surrounded my dad. I saved his medication list, and a medical paper referring to the state of his lungs, which after years of constantly smoking cigars, were in a pretty sorry state.

Is there anything you’re holding onto, hidden away in your attic or stuffed in a closet that you’d like to death clean? Tell me what you’re getting rid of, write about it and send it to me. You can contact me using this Wix site, or email me. Let me know if I can include you in a future blog.

Thank you to the writer Tamara Miles for encouraging me to start this blog again. Taking pictures of what I'm tossing helps, to write about what I'm finally getting rid of.

Here's an example of something I can toss, these marriage certificates, but before I included it in the post, I hesitated. I don't need to save things like this, although it is interesting to me that my half-brother Richard doesn't think Riley was ever divorced from his mother, Alix. Alix was Riley's wife number three and there's no divorce papers anywhere.

This note from his bank was at the bottom of one of Riley's boxes. He'd baked for the bankers. This was 1997. By 2009, he'd over drawn his account so many times, he wasn't allowed to have an account anymore. My mother used to say, "he's just bad with money" and then I said it, too.

I don't need to save this piece of paper from the bank, but I'm glad I saw it. Thank you for looking at it with me. It's weird how it helps when I know someone is looking at it and I imagine you saying, "yeah, you can toss that now. We've all looked at it."

I held onto a whole pile of Riley's shut off notices, over-draft fees, letters from the bank asking for payments. Why on earth didn't I throw this stuff out when I first came across it, and why did I put all of it in a folder? That's Riley's shaky handwriting on the tab. I think it reads "Bills Current." He had a hard time at the end of his life. Writing was hard, so was holding a fork.

It's late. It's dark. I'm going to try my best not to doom scroll. I look forward to hearing from you.