What Is an Estate Organizer, and How Do They Help Families Heal? An Interview with Sarah Hirsch, Part One

Today SevenPonds connects with Sarah Hirsch, an estate organizer and genealogist who works with clients on sorting and properly memorializing personal possessions. When a loved one dies, it’s often difficult for families to go through their loved one’s things and decide which objects to keep. Hirsch helps families in the San Francisco Bay area make these difficult decisions. In part one of this two-part interview, she explains why families need an estate organizer’s help. 

Credit: Sarah Hirsch

Marissa: What do you do for your clients as an estate organizer? 

Sarah: In short, I sort! I sort through personal possessions — sometimes an entire household, sometimes a specific portion, like paperwork — to identify important items and create clarifying order. It’s hard to overstate how challenging it is to settle an estate. The task is daunting even without any emotional burden. Families must function while wrestling with issues surrounding loss, illness, death, and interpersonal conflict. They can become overwhelmed pretty quickly, and perspective is often one of the first casualties.

The term estate organizing suggests that there has been a death. In my work, this isn’t always the case. Someone might move into a nursing home, taking very little with them. Or an elder may no longer be able to manage their affairs, creating an unsafe living environment. It is equally important in all these situations that the sorting/purging be done respectfully. I don’t imagine that many of us would appreciate people barging into our home, passing judgment on all our belongings and throwing them away as fast as possible!

Marissa: Why do people need an estate organizer? 

Sarah: Family and friends are usually under a great deal of stress after a death, probably more than they realize. The chances of accident, injury, and illness increase dramatically as stress levels rise. The guidance of a professional organizer can support the family’s emotional and psychological well-being while preventing costly mishaps and missteps. From a practical perspective, the family may simply not know where to start or what to look for. Sorting through an entire home is time consuming and physically demanding. Sorting itself is not a skill that everyone has or enjoys.

Marissa: In your experience, what are some of the common problems that people face when they try to handle things without an estate organizer?

Sarah: People sometimes assume that they know how to “clean out a house,” which I don’t think accurately describes the task. They may attack the problem with open trash bags, picking up items at random to throw away. This unconscious approach inevitably leads to the baby being thrown out with the bathwater. Well, OK, I’ve never heard of a real baby being inadvertently disposed of. But plenty of other important stuff does get tossed, including good family relationships.

Credit: pixabay.com

I know of an instance where an organizer discovered many thousands of dollars worth of jewelry in her client’s trash. The client had thrown things away either without looking carefully or perhaps because they weren’t able to recognize the value of what they were seeing. One of my clients permanently misplaced the estate’s original Will & Trust documents. What a headache!

Marissa: You talk about the power of personal belongings, especially after someone has died. How can genealogy help families heal?

Sarah: It can help people discover a new sense of identity and belonging, which is especially important when a person’s familiar identity has been deeply shattered by loss. Building a family tree can become a memorial and love letter to one’s family.

It’s pretty common to uncover family history information when going through the home. Parents may have squirreled it away after inheriting it from their parents, perhaps without really looking at it. For a complex mix of reasons, Americans don’t always talk comfortably about the past, much less honor our ancestors. Family history often fails to be transmitted even to the next generation. Yet, we are each only the newest link in ancient, fragile chains. And, we are each here thanks to the struggle and perseverance of those who came before us. Discovering this can take us out of ourselves, giving us greater perspective, gratitude, and compassion.

Credit: Wikiimedia.org Lin Kristensen

Marissa: What are some of the common objects that families tend to hold onto? The objects that usually have the most emotional ties, in other words?

Sarah: The items most commonly kept items are the ones that need to be kept, like legal and financial documents. What strikes me most about the things people want to keep is how utterly unique and personal they are. I can name categories like clothing, photos or books, but this can’t explain the meaning a particular thing has for a particular person. Story and memory live in the object. Naming the object alone doesn’t tell its story.

Marissa: As a follow-up to the last question, what are some of the things that you think are beneficial for grieving families to keep?

Sarah: Circumstances vary so much that what makes sense for one family may not be at all appropriate for another. The Garcia children might cherish their parents’ heirloom furniture, while the Smith children have no interest in antiques or need to sell as much as possible to pay medical bills. Having said this, I do usually advocate for keeping family history materials.

Credit: flickr.com Barta IV

The things people don’t keep can be just as impactful as what is kept. After their mother died, one family donated everything they weren’t keeping to the local thrift store where their mom had volunteered for years. Donations can create legacy and play an important role in the grieving process. A daughter donated her father’s rock collection to a university geology department. In a very different story, another daughter burned her father’s insect collection because she hated it. How much more constructive it would have been to donate to, say, a school science class!

Next week, join us for part two of our interview with Sarah Hirsch, where she’ll offer tips on how to organize an estate.