Letting Go, Holding On: Lessons from Sorting a Loved One’s Belongings

/ Episode Post / By
Episode artwork for Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice Podcast for the episode titled "Letting Go, Holding On: Lessons from Sorting a Loved One’s Belongings”

Show Notes

In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, Patricia and Nicole discuss the emotional and practical challenges of sorting through a loved one’s belongings after their passing, sharing personal experiences and advice for others facing similar situations. They highlight the importance of community support, self-compassion, and taking the process step by step, even when going through their own belongings.

Mentioned on the show:

Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com

Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify

Sound editing by Jen Zink

Transcript

Music: [Intro Music] 

Patricia: Hey there spooky, scary skeletons. Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle. 

Nicole: And I’m wearing my skeleton costume on the inside. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording this show on October 25th, 2025.

Patricia: Hey-oh! 

Yeah, and it comes out right before Halloween. 

Nicole: Ooh. 

Patricia: Mmm. 

This podcast is independently run and we’re hoping to be supported by listeners. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support. 

Nicole: If you have a few bucks to donate, our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month, even if you don’t wanna engage with the content there, it’s a great way to donate to the show. No pressure, but there are three tiers to choose from. 

Patricia: We also have a bookshop affiliate site, which is linked on our webpage, eedapod.com. It’s also linked in the show notes. Any books that we mention on the show and sometimes books I mention elsewhere are on our bookshop affiliate site. So if you buy books through bookshop, you support not only us through our affiliate site, but you also support independent bookstores. 

Nicole: And with the holiday season approaching, if you’re not sure what to get someone, we’ve got a merch shop! You can find a link to our merch shop on our webpage at eedapod.com.

Patricia: Also, as you heard from one of our previous episode, we are going to start talking every once in a while about the self-help books we love and hate. And we would love for you to email us the self-help books that you love or hate at eedapod at gmail dot com. 

Before we get into it, we do wanna talk a bit about what is happening in the US with the federal government. Specifically starting November 1st, there are a lot of people who are going to lose access to their SNAP benefits, and SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

They used to be called Food stamps, in California I think it’s EBT, and it means that getting food is going to be harder for a lot more people. And we wanna bring this up on the show because I think there are a lot of people out there who think that, oh, because they aren’t using this assistance program, they think that it doesn’t affect them.

Nicole: And you would be very, very wrong. 

Patricia: You would be very, very wrong. So, you know, say sometimes you can use like, uh, SNAP benefits at the farmer’s market or obviously the grocery store. And so if person A who uses assistance can’t go to the farmer’s market to pay for and pay for their fruit and veg, then that means that particular booth stand farmer doesn’t get money.

And so if they don’t have money, they don’t have money to invest in business or pay for their own bills or things like that. And the same with if you’re using assistance at the grocery store. If suddenly you can’t go to the grocery store ’cause you can’t afford it, the grocery store loses money. 

What does the grocery store do? They may lay people off. They may raise their prices. And who’s paying those higher prices for groceries now? 

Nicole: Everybody else. 

Patricia: You and me. 

So like this affects everyone. It might not be super direct, but because we live in a society, everything is connected. 

Nicole: Yeah, this is in effect just withdrawing a large amount of money from the economy that can no longer be used or circulated.

Patricia: Yeah, so everyone loses. Everyone loses with this. If you are a person who has a bit extra to give, we recommend donating to your local food banks or donating directly to mutual aid. 

Nicole: With those food banks in particular, often just give them money. 

Patricia: Just give them money. Yeah. Don’t, don’t think about what food to bring. Give them money if you have it to give. 

Nicole: Yeah, they can make better use of the money than the 10 tins of canned corn you give them or whatever. 

Patricia: Yeah. I think, you know, we set up very modest, you know, like 20 bucks recurring donations to our local food bank. 

Also in Oakland, there is a group called Care for Community, and they go out and they do street cleanups. They bring people groceries, they buy people gas. And there’s also the East Oakland Collective that we’re also throwing like a small bit of money toward, but every little bit helps. And they also help people with groceries and, and all kinds of things. So really look up to try to, you know, help people in your area.

Also, if you see someone in the grocery store, pullin a Jean Valjean with some bread. No, you didn’t. 

Nicole: And if you think that someone else might be noticing, maybe make a little distraction so they look at you instead. 

Patricia: Absolutely. If you are a person who is having trouble finding or getting your basic needs met, one resource that I shared in the most recent Enthusiastic, Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter is findhelp.org. And so that’s all kinds of things. So not only food, but shelter, healthcare, transportation. 

And then another thing is, I remember we went to a branch of the Berkeley Public Library and the librarians there are awesome as always. And there was a whole wall of like one-pagers that had all kinds of resources for how to get basic needs met, um, how to find jobs, blah, blah, blah. Also, if your library doesn’t have that, you can still ask a librarian to help you find resources, right? Librarians help direct you to resources, and those aren’t always books.

Nicole: Yeah, findhelp.org may also be useful if you are looking for someplace in your local community to give to. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: It’s a great website. You go, you can enter your address or your zip code or whatever and it will populate local assistance programs near you. 

Patricia: Totally. 

I also want to raise up, it’s not here in our script, but just if you have extra food, giving it away on your local, if you use buy nothing, or a group like that, buy nothing’s usually on Facebook. But you know, I remember we had some pasta sauce, it wasn’t expired. We just realized we weren’t going to eat it. And so I put it up on buy nothing and someone else was like, yeah, I’ll take the pasta sauce. So having a little extra, especially like if you’re not going to eat it, maybe a neighbor would take it.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. That’s real good.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Patricia: So this week we got to see one of my dearest friends. She came from far, far away and in the lead up to this, we have been doing a lot of cleaning. Which began with finally going through all of my mother’s things that are here at our house. If you’re new here, my mom passed away in early 2023 and she was a hoarder among other things.

She was living in Lahaina on Maui and had shipped a bunch of boxes back to the mainland before moving back to the Bay Area in November, 2022. So these boxes, plus boxes that have been sitting in my aunt’s garage for maybe seven or eight years at least, were all in our back room just stacked taller than I am.

And today we wanna share some of the things that we’ve learned going through this process. 

Nicole: And as part of this, like framing or backstory, we also have the unfortunately traumatic experience of having to go through a friend’s home after he took his own life, which in some ways was not unsimilar to going through these boxes.

Patricia: Yeah. 

That being said, we also have our own doom room of belongings to go through at some point, and we will talk a bit about that later as well. 

Nicole: What we are not going to talk about is hoarding disorder and the many different and sometimes complex reasons why some people may hoard. We are not experts on this and we’re not gonna pretend to be.

What we are gonna talk about is what we do know, which is some of our lived experience. 

Patricia: It is really important to me personally that we talk about this because I don’t think this is talked about enough either the going through someone’s vast amount of things after they passed. Or also that we ourselves have our own absurd amount of things that need to be gone through. 

And we’re not merely talking about, you know, clutter. We’re not talking about something that can be managed in a productive weekend. We’re talking about a room full of stuff, like a significant amount of stuff. One of the books I read this year is titled Destroy This House: A Memoir by Amanda Uhle. And she talks about her parents being hoarders and also liars and myriad other things. And I was so grateful that Amanda shared her story as awful as it sounded.

Nicole: The way hoarding is talked about in the media is often incredibly negative. It’s a spectacle, it’s an illness, et cetera. Unless it’s billionaires, hoarding money, property, resources, or other capital. In reality, because of capitalism and consumerism, a lot of people in the United States have a lot of stuff. 

Around 11% of households have a storage unit. In 2023 there are an estimated 128.7 million households in the United States. So if we do some like rough math, that means over 14 million households have storage units. So even if you don’t see everyone’s stuff in their homes. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it or it’s not there. 

Patricia: Yeah, and sometimes it’s in the garage or the basement.

Nicole: Oh, that’s a really big thing in California where we don’t have to park our cars in a garage. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

And full disclosure, we still have my mother’s storage unit to go through at some point, and that will absolutely be a nightmare. I’m not looking forward to that. But that’s gonna be a, a problem for future us.

Anyway, I do want to talk about some of the things we’ve learned so far in going through my mother’s stuff. 

Nicole: First, do not do this alone. We get it, there may be a lot of shame, whether it’s your stuff or someone else’s. And this can be a deeply personal process. With that in mind, here’s some things to think about when figuring out who can help or at least be emotional support. They can be your unpacking buddy. 

Patricia: Your helpful helper. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Your enthusiastic encourager. 

Nicole: Yeah. You probably don’t want a dubious advisor on this one. 

Patricia: Yeah, maybe not dubious advisor. 

For example, you helped me go through my mom’s stuff and we could talk about our process. But first of all, for me, you knew my mom and you didn’t rush me to make decisions.

You were willing to handle some of the harder things we found. But since you are family, I knew that you weren’t so detached that it would feel impersonal. 

Nicole: Some people might like that though. Maybe you do want a buddy who is no nonsense and not sentimental and just goal oriented. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

And maybe this is just me, but also I get really suspicious if I go to someone’s home and they don’t have stuff. Are they a serial killer? Are they planning on disappearing? Are they even who they say they are? 

I had a friend come over and she helped weed our library, and I know she didn’t judge the dust or the hundreds of books on the floor because I know she has her own piles of stuff. And for some reason, like that was very calming for me.

Nicole: I mentioned earlier about the way hoarding is talked about in media, but also that can be something that comes into play as you choose your buddy to go through things with. How has that person talked about other people’s hoarding or states of their homes or whatever? Is that the energy you want them to bring to this party?

It’s gonna be hard enough as it is. You probably don’t want to feel judged the whole time. 

Patricia: For real. 

The next thing we learned is no marathons. Do not try to do this all at once. If you have the luxury of time, take frequent breaks, set a timer or choose how long you’re going to be at it. 

Put on some music. Choose how many boxes you’ll go through before stopping for the day. Like really build a container for yourself. 

Nicole: Yeah, I think that’s really helpful. 

Another thing that was really helpful for us was to rely heavily on frequent breaks. And in the same vein, like have beverages and snacks handy. In particular, water is really helpful if it’s gonna be dusty.

Patricia: Yeah, it is really easy to forget to stay hydrated during this process. Like I would just get into a fugue state and, and forget to drink water or Gatorade or whatever. 

Also, if you have the luxury of time, allow yourself to pause or tap out for the day. Like give yourself permission to be like, you know what, I’m done. And revisit it.

Nicole: Now, I don’t wanna get too much into this part, but it was helpful to have gloves, some cleaning supplies. If you need them, some masks. And make sure there is some sort of room to sort through some things. And also room in the garbage can. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Room in the garbage can. Room in the recycle bin. 

Nicole: Yeah.

Patricia: Something that you were really helpful with that I mentioned earlier, is that you gave me permission to not make a decision about every little thing. Like some things were clearly trash or giveaway and some things were TBD. Momentum can easily come to a halt if you get caught up on a hard decision.

Nicole: Yeah. 

And reflecting on how I did this with you, ’cause I did a lot of the physical unpacking of the boxes. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: There were kind of two parts to it. The first was just in unpacking the box, there were some things that we could easily make a decision about. Like, oh, this is clearly just garbage. 

Patricia: Yep. 

Nicole: But others, I would just kind of set them out while we went through the rest of the box, and sometimes maybe even another box or two. They would just kind of sit out, we laid out some towels to set things onto, and usually, or sometimes that was enough to like make a decision by the end of that time. 

Patricia: Session. 

Nicole: That session. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Session’s a good word for that. Yeah. 

But occasionally there were things that you felt you needed more time for and there was no pressure.

I, I didn’t wanna put pressure on those things. And what we did instead is I would just put those items into another box and that box was essentially the, I am having feelings about these things box. And we just revisited that on another day. 

Patricia: Yeah, and I did find that sometimes, like I had a lot of feelings in the moment and then when I revisited it the next weekend I was like, yeah, it’s cool. We can let that go. 

Nicole: Yeah, but you needed to like work through that a little bit. 

Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. 

Nicole: Yeah. But, honestly, like there are so many resources on decluttering and cleaning and that kind of thing, so we’re not gonna get into more specifics about what to do with each item. But we encourage you to be realistic.

Are you actually gonna sell that thing or should you really just donate it or give it to a neighbor in your local buy nothing group. 

Patricia: One of the things that stuck with me from the book, Gentle: Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want by Courtney Carver, is that she and her spouse set a dollar limit.

Like they would look at an item and think if they could get $50 or more for a thing, they’d sell it. If they could not get that much for a thing after looking it up on, you know, Craigslist or eBay or Facebook marketplace, then it gets given away. I really like that, and having, like making that decision upfront makes future decisions easier.

Nicole: The other thing to keep in mind is that it’s okay to change your mind about some of your decisions. You may set something aside in the save or sell group, and after a little while decide you’d rather just give it to the neighbors. That’s okay. My advice here really is to choose whatever would be least stressful for you.

Patricia: Yeah. Really trying to mitigate the barriers and roadblocks too, like… 

Nicole: Yeah. I think a lot of people get caught up on like trying to recoup costs or something like that, when really one of the big goals here is to just clean up and get things out. 

Patricia: Talking about, like changing your mind about decisions. My mother was, she loved Christmas decorations, and I was not a Christmas person. I’m Halloween person! But, uh, she, one of the things we found, or a couple, a pair of the things we found are these lanterns that are actually snow globes with like glitter snow and there’s a button and you could turn it on and they like light up and throw glitter all through the globe, and they’re hideous.

And she bought them. They still have the tags on them. I know they were aspirational to her that she would someday be in a home where she could decorate for Christmas. And so I was going to give them to my cousin to sell, ’cause she was selling things on Facebook marketplace. And you know, they sat here for a few weeks and I decided, you know what? I’m going to keep these hideous lantern snow globe things, and we are going to put them up in honor of Mom with our other holiday decorations. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

And I know, like from my perspective on this, having also lost parents, when you said, I want to keep them, I, I think my response was okay, great. Because I know having any kind of that connection is so important.

And so if you are feeling a connection in this, then like, great, I want you to have that. I’m not gonna fight you on a couple of decorative lanterns. 

Patricia: Totally. And we still got rid of like 95% of the stuff, right? So… 

Nicole: Yeah, I think we’ve whittled down 30 something boxes to like, 

Patricia: It was, uh, including luggage. I think the final count was like 44. 

Nicole: And I think we’re down to like maybe five.

Patricia: Something like that. Yeah. 

Nicole: Something in that realm. 

Patricia: Five of stuff like to go back through or, or whatever. 

Nicole: Yeah, there’s a bunch to go back through. 

Patricia: So I started a newsletter at the start of our process of going through Mom’s stuff, it’s called Optimistic Hoarder. I’ll link it in the show notes and it’s chronicling going through my mom’s stuff box by box as a way to help me emotionally process.

And while it’s been really helpful, I found it was not sustainable for me to actively, emotionally process things while we were going through them. So I kept a notebook while we were going through things and I took extensive notes. 

Um, 

Nicole: and sometimes pictures too. 

Patricia: And sometimes some pictures. When I was writing, like I said, it was helpful, so I look forward to getting back to it. Like now we’ve gotten through these boxes. I have a bunch of notes and I will get back to it. So, Optimistic Hoarder is a free newsletter ’cause my goal is to process things through it, not make money from it, and it comes out whenever I manage to get it. So I’ll link that in the show notes.

Nicole: Having gone through your mom’s stuff like this has also made us less precious about things, and I don’t know about you, but it makes me feel more confident when we start going through our own things. 

Patricia: Oh, absolutely. I feel like we’ve done the really hard part and now our own stuff is going to be like, ooh, what’s this? I remember this. Or, oh wow, I am a very different person than when I bought this or used to wear this. 

Nicole: Even so the emotions that bubble up can be unexpected. So we encourage you to journal about your going through things. And if you have a relationship with like a mental health professional, that can also be a really great support.

Patricia: And this isn’t only like if you’re going through someone else’s things that has passed, or even an elder who is still with us. But also going through your own things, ’cause it could bring up a lot of stuff. 

Nicole: Yeah, I am, I’m a little more curious when we start going through our stuff, because I’m gonna have a lot more feelings about that I’m sure. 

Patricia: I think so. Yeah. 

Oh, one more thing I remembered. If you can start small. Start with one box, or if it’s the whole house, start with a single drawer or a cabinet, and then you can work your way up to a closet or a dresser or the laundry room. Try to find ways to give yourself some wins up front. There is, it used to be a Tumblr and there’s a book that came out called Un-F Your Habitat, and I’ll also link that book in the show notes in our, in our bookshop affiliate site. But that person says, like if it’s a room or whatever, start by throwing all the trash away. Just get a trash bag, throw all the trash away, and move all the dishes and cups and food wear to the sink. Like just doing that, especially, maybe you have like a depression room or something like that and you don’t know where to get started.

Like those are some easy wins that make a big difference. 

Nicole: You say, like, start with throwing the trash away. I think that is really good advice, even for going through boxes sometimes. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Like I know going through some of the stuff that we got back, like it was clear your mom was intending to unpack and use this stuff right away.

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: And so occasionally we’d open a box and there’d be like, a jar of peanut butter from like three years ago. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: And so it was like, oh, this is very clearly garbage now. So as we’re going through it, just like, 

Patricia: yeah, we don’t need to set it out to the side to think about what to do with it. Just like into the trash.

Nicole: Oh, that can just go. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Like there’s no reason to try to hold onto that. 

Patricia: Totally. 

Nicole: Honestly, I feel like we’re gonna learn even more things about this process as we go through our own doom room, your mom’s storage unit, like… 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: We’re, we’re just setting out on this.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Nicole: Okay, so Patricia, what do you want people to take away from this episode? 

Patricia: So I was thinking about this. Having too much stuff, or a parent who has or had too much stuff is really common in the United States, though it remains pretty hidden. One of the things I’ve learned from writing Optimistic Hoarder is that each post I’ve gotten many emails and response, and each email is about how the reader is also going through a similar process.

Nicole: I think that’s really important. Like none of us are alone in this really. 

Patricia: No, but no one talks about it. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Nicole, what’s your takeaway? 

Nicole: I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is not an easy process. Be patient with yourself. Recognize that it may take some time to get through everything, and I feel like at least in our experience, it did start to feel a little easier the more we did it.

Patricia: I think so, yeah. For the most part. Sometimes we’d run into something like, oof, that was a hard box to go through. But I think as soon as we gained momentum, and we had like our kind of steps and process kind of like hammered down. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: It did become easier. 

Nicole: Okay, so that wasn’t a very, I don’t know, happy, 

Patricia: You know, I’m very proud of us for going through it, right. 

Nicole: I’m proud of us. It was, it was a difficult thing. 

Patricia: It was a hard thing, and we can, and we can do hard things and… 

Nicole: Yeah, we can do hard things. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: On the opposite end of that though, 

Patricia: mm-hmm 

Nicole: what, what’s been filling your cup lately? 

Patricia: Well, one of the related things is we had about 200 books and stacks on the floor, and you built another bookshelf in the back room, which we have space for now that we’ve gone through mom’s boxes.

And I was able to do some rearranging of bookshelves, and now we have all this floor space. Which is amazing ’cause these books are off the floor. They’re on shelves. Most of the shelves are in order. I’m definitely gonna have to like do a little video of like a library tour. But it’s bringing me a lot of joy and like I, I think we mentioned earlier, we ordered new reading chairs and so now there’s plenty of space for the new chairs to get here within the next couple of weeks and I’m very excited.

And the other thing filling our cup is seeing my friend Mary, who came into town and we took off work on Wednesday and it felt very luxurious to have a day off in the middle of the week seeing one of my dearest friends. There’s something very special about having a friend, you know, we’ve known each other since like, she was 16 and I was 18.

And I don’t know, there’s something special about someone who knew you when you were still in puberty and your prefrontal cortex was not yet fully developed and you’ve seen so many iterations of each other. 

And she is, she is a person who, if she ever calls, I always pick up her call. I never send it to voicemail. Like, if I am available, I’ll pick up Mary’s call. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: So it was great to see her. 

Nicole, what’s filling your cup? 

Nicole: I too am really enjoying having the house cleaned up. I was laughing right now when you said I built a bookshelf because in my head that sounded like I got out some wood and some tools. 

Patricia: No, you put together an IKEA bookshelf, like 

Nicole: I put together an IKEA bookshelf.

It was like an hour of just like, fitting things together. 

Patricia: That’s fair. That’s fair. 

Nicole: As much as I would love to try my hand at building a bookshelf, I, I don’t think 

Patricia: That’s, that’s someday in the future. 

Nicole: I don’t, I I am not a woodworking person. 

Patricia: No, you can be though. 

Nicole: I can if I want to be. Yes, of course. 

One of the other things, and it’s, it’s a little thing.

It’s a simple thing. But we have some of the Trader Joe’s spiced apple cider. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: And just in the evenings when it’s cool, popping that in the microwave and then spraying some whipped cream on top and just like sitting and enjoying that. Like taking a moment. That’s been really nice. 

Patricia: Yeah, that’s been really nice.

Nicole: Like more nice than I expected, as like I was like, oh, it’s a little treat. 

Patricia: Yeah. But just a little, the little burst of joy there. Yeah. 

Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, and we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes. 

Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Blue Sky at eedapod and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com. 

Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.

Nicole: We would also really appreciate it if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, hmm, maybe not Spotify anymore? 

Patricia: I mean, we are still posting our show on Spotify because we realize that’s where a lot of people are, but we are no longer paying for Spotify. 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: And actually in the most recent newsletter, I, uh, put a link to think about where else you could get your music. 

Nicole: Yes. 

So I guess still give us ratings there. We love it if you listen to us and, and, uh, give us ratings anywhere that you get your podcasts that allow for ratings. The thing is, the more ratings we get, the more other people can find us and that that’s really helpful for growing the show and making sure that we can still do this.

If you would like to leave us a comment, you can do so at any of the places I just named including YouTube or just email us. We love that too. 

Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support there is going to help us keep the show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod.

In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.

Nicole: It’s a nice rainy day. Maybe, uh, maybe I’ll have some cider early. 

Patricia: Okay!