Our Story
It started with a house full of questions.
A small Massachusetts farmhouse, 91 years of belongings, and the realization that without the stories, we were just guessing.
When my grandmother died at 91 in February 2025, she left behind a small Massachusetts farmhouse filled with 91 years of belongings. As executor, my Dad did most of the work of clearing the house, with help from myself, my brother, and my Mom along the way.
We expected it would be time consuming. We didn’t expect it to be so mentally draining.
It wasn’t just that there was a lot. It was that almost nothing came with context.
We would pick something up and realize we didn’t know what it was, why Grandma had kept it, whether it was valuable, or whether it meant something to someone else in the family. Grandma left one handwritten list with her wishes for about twenty items. Everything else was left for us to figure out.
Then came the question of how to handle things in a way that felt fair.
With a blended family of 6 siblings and step-siblings, my Dad felt it was important to give everyone a chance to weigh in. We didn’t want anyone to feel left out, or find out later that something meaningful had been given away.
So each item became a coordination exercise. We would take a photo, send it around, and wait while people considered whether they wanted it or whether they wanted to come through the house in person. Someone might say no, then add that maybe their daughter would want it. Then we would wait again.
The process stretched longer than we expected because every item required both interpretation and input.
The work stopped feeling like sorting belongings and started feeling like trying to reconstruct what had mattered to Grandma and our family, piece by piece.
The hardest part wasn’t deciding who got what or what to do with the rest. It was realizing how much had already been lost. Stories we never heard. Reasons we could only guess at. Intentions that might have been simple if they had been written down somewhere.
It became clear how much difference even a small amount of recorded context could have made. Grandma did the best she could with her handwritten list of wishes. She didn’t have a better system for capturing meaning and intention behind her belongings.
A Universal Story
This isn’t a unique story. It turns out almost every family has a version of it.
We’ve spoken with hundreds of families who’ve been through the same experience. The names change. The houses change. The exhaustion, the guilt, the strained relationships, the lost stories all repeat with remarkable consistency.
