
A few weeks ago, I went to hear The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, talk about their new book, Everything That Remains. I listened as Joshua read an emotional chapter dealing with boxing up his mom’s apartment after her death.
Earlier that day, I’d been helping clean out a friend’s condo, going through 1000s of pieces of paper and pictures, getting it ready for closing. I’d spent almost a week doing that, and would spend another two weeks sifting and sorting before it was all done.
She suffers from early onset dementia, and recently had to move to a memory care facility. (Consider this a cautionary tale. Imagine your family or friends going through all your things, what will they find? If that isn’t enough to scare you into cleaning out your closets, nothing is.)