Before heading out to mow I checked messages on my phone and learned of the death of the guitar teacher my son studied with all through high school. I called to tell him, then forwarded the announcement. And told the rest of the family, all who met this fellow several times over the years. Unrelated to the loss of a friend and mentor to my son is the realization that he was two years younger than me almost to the day. This is the wrong kind of decluttering, a name crossed off of the contacts list.

The ex-son-in-law of a friend died last year and his grown children never did much about the house or his estate. An attorney neighbor of their mother's offered to help with probate, but nothing happened and the house went back to the bank. The front door lock was changed but not the back, so apparently family go in and out to look for stuff. He was four years younger than me, and he was a hoarder, part of the reason there was little interest in taking on the project, and he had financed the house to the hilt to support living beyond his means, so there wasn't going to be much cash coming out of it (though with the price of real estate now, I still think that was a foolish move. Hire a huge dumpster and start hauling out the garage door - in effect tip the house on end to empty it, then sell it broom clean and they'd have made some money.) He had lost the respect of just about any one who knew him with his sociopathic passive-aggressive approach to parenting and partnering. There was no funeral, no donations suggested. No obituary.

The teacher who died ran a guitar studio and one of his oldest students has promised to step up and keep the institution running. They were involved with community concerts every year and running a guitar program in one of the middle or high schools on the north side of town. They did a lot of giving back to the community.

How you live your life can make a big difference in how you're treated once you're gone. It isn't about the stuff, it's about the people (and if the stuff became more important than people.)