When I asked my mother what she would like for her birthday this year, she quickly responded: Nothing. We are downsizing.
My parents already live in a small house, an old fishing cabin on the shore of a lake. Our family moved several times when my siblings and I were little, and our childhood belongings dwindled with each step. My parents moved out after we graduated college, stripped down even more of their belongings, and sent the remaining furniture to each of us kids. I bought the Sellers Hoosier, a log cabin with a built-in tin flour container and a metal bread kneading rack, now over 100 years old, that my great-grandmother used to bake in.
I was wondering what they had left to reduce. And then it hit me: were they cleaning up the Swedish death? “Döstädning: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death-Decluttering” is the best-selling book that spawned a television show and popularized a decluttering technique that has people clean their belongings before they die, so their friends and family can they don't have to do it. My mother will be 80 this year, my father 82. Was there something they weren't telling me?
It turned out that my parents hadn't seen the show or read the book. The real problem was that they had just inherited a lot of “stuff” from my aunt, who has dementia and was moving into assisted living. My mom told me about all the things my aunt had hoarded and saved that were now in cardboard boxes: linen plates and tea towels commemorating British royalty; Hummel figurines (and some fakes); newspaper clippings. There were also letters, photographs, notes and diaries. Birthday cards. Those personal items that we keep, private and special just for us. Our “stuff”. My aunt never intended for anyone else to see it or have to deal with it.
My mother didn't think it was appropriate to throw any of it away, not while my aunt was still alive. “She asked for some of Princess Diana's things to be sent to you,” Mom confessed. “But,” he whispered, “I don't think you want it.” She's right, I'm not, but the more important question is: who is?
the idea of döstädning (and the fact that my aunt clearly didn't notice) made me think about all the things I've collected over the years. When I moved from New York to Los Angeles over 20 years ago, I couldn't afford to ship most of my books, so I shipped only the most prized signed editions I had. I also sent the diaries I had kept for years, filled with little details of my life in New York City. What I wore on a first date. A promotion. An unrequited love. I was moving to Los Angeles for love, but I couldn't separate myself from these chronicles of all my previous relationships.
Now those diaries live in the garage of my family's house in Los Feliz. I know exactly which plastic container they are in, although I haven't read them since I left New York. If I died tomorrow, how would I feel if someone else read them: my parents, my son, my husband? And if I don't want anyone to read them after I'm gone, why have I kept them?
This led me to ask my friends and family: Is there anything you would want automatically destroyed after you die, before your loved ones found it? Most of the responses revolved around sex: nude photos, sex toys, pornography, obscene notes and sexual messages. Other answers were more comical: a stash of marijuana they didn't want the kids to find; specifically, cannabutter in the freezer. The secret family in New Jersey (I think I was joking).
Some people revealed that they had pacts with a friend or family member to destroy certain items after their death. I loved the idea of a trusted friend revealing all my buried secrets, until I remembered what happened to Franz Kafka. His friend and literary executor, Max Brod, had been entrusted with the task of burning all of Kafka's letters and manuscripts after his death, a wish that Kafka put in writing, even though Brod told him he would not do so. In fact, Brod published the material and we would not have “The Trial,” “The Castle,” or other great works if he had followed Kafka's instructions.
Did Brod have the right to annul his friend? Perhaps it is better to ask whether Kafka had the right to ask that the manuscripts be destroyed. As an artist, do you owe the world your work, even after death?
My friend Cecil, a novelist, says: “As artists, it is up to us to preserve the shameful things that inspire us. We are complex and I hope everyone understands it.” She says her diaries would make “boring reading,” but if you asked me to destroy all her works after her death and find some beautiful writing among them, I wouldn't know how to proceed.
Although I have published a memoir and works of fiction that allow readers a glimpse into my life, I still have parts of me that I don't want anyone to see. In this age of oversharing, talking about what I would like to see erased after my death has given me a better understanding of döstädning and its attractiveness. It's less about saving our families from having to do the cleaning work and more about applying a small measure of control over how we are remembered by those we love. Maybe it'll also be a push to live a life worth remembering (sex toys and all) while we can.
Cylin Busby is an author and screenwriter. His latest book is “The Bookstore Cat.”
