Combing Through My Dead Dad’s Gmail Account
On digital heirlooms and ongoing conversations
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Family Heirlooms That Our Children Don’t Want,” apparently resonated with millennials, as many of my peers were sharing it on social media. The gist is that boomer parents have a lot of stuff, and often, for various reasons, their adult children don’t want the stuff. This dilemma raises some complex emotions for boomers, but ultimately, many of them come around to realize that millennials already have their own stuff, and what’s deemed valuable or important to one generation isn’t necessarily viewed as important or valuable to the next.
When my parents died five years ago, my brothers and I were tasked with sorting and clearing, determining who got what and what to leave behind. Fortunately, our parents made this relatively easy for us, as they had already downsized and they’d never attached too much meaning to objects. There was a decent amount of clutter but very few heirlooms. Mostly, it was an unemotional affair. Most things were just things: furniture, artwork, books, photographs. We were free to make our own choices.
But in talking about the things people leave behind, we often forget that there’s stuff beyond the physical. Today, most of us live with one foot planted firmly in the digital…
