My Dad Was a Hoarder. Now I’m Sorting Through His Life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maia Storm, of Maia’s Makery. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In January, my dad, with whom I have always had a strained relationship, died unexpectedly.

For the last few years, my dad had been homeless on and off. Throughout that time, he’d kept his things in two storage units in north Georgia. There was one temperature-controlled unit that was 12 feet by 12 feet, and a second, which was much bigger — 12 feet by 24 feet.

My aunt and I found his keys in his truck, and when we opened the units, we couldn’t believe the sheer amount of stuff he had squirreled away for decades.

I found childhood photos

Little by little, over the last three months, we’ve packed our cars with boxes, bringing them back to Savannah to sort through.

The most emotional find has been old photos from my childhood — pictures I’ve never seen before. There were a lot of difficult moments in my childhood, and those are the moments I typically remember. Finding these photos unlocked good memories of my dad.

Not only had he saved photos, but he’d also kept artwork, trinkets, and toys of mine.

I think my dad wanted to be close to me — to have a relationship with me — but he just didn’t know how, and his life was too chaotic to figure it out.

I found concert T-shirts

For over 40 years, my dad worked as a crew member for concerts and events. For each of these events, he was given a T-shirt. These are classic, one-of-a-kind T-shirts. And I found over 40 of them in one unit. There is an Eagles one and a Metallica one that are my favorites.

I’ve had to wash them, because I don’t think he ever did after wearing them, and I plan to keep some for myself, give some away, and sell others.

He also had lots of guitar picks. I knew my dad was obsessed with guitar picks, and I remember him showing me ones that really famous people had used while performing.

I found an amateur coin collection I haven’t even begun to sort through yet to see if it’s worth anything, and lots of newspapers covering pivotal points in history.

I have only started to scratch the surface of what’s in the units — it is going to take months to separate trash from treasure.

My dad also hoarded stuff

While there is plenty I will keep from my dad’s collection, there is a lot I will have to throw out.

Alongside the memorabilia and keepsakes, there are bags of recycling and trash. He kept everything. I’ve found notebooks, yearbooks, scraps of paper, and math books. My dad didn’t just collect, he hoarded.

He didn’t organize any of it. I opened a box that contained crumpled Post-it notes and nearly threw it away before finding a silver ounce coin in it. It literally is trash next to treasure, so I can’t sort through it too quickly.

And now that he’s passed, it’s up to me to go through his things, deciding what is worth keeping and what needs to be thrown away.

When I posted on Instagram about my dad’s things, I couldn’t believe the response I had from people. People wrote to me about the pressures of having hoarding parents and the grief of parental alienation and addiction. Some people said how much they loved how my dad’s collection reminded them of past memories.

Perhaps at another time in my life, sorting through my dad’s things would have felt like a weight, but I’ve had a really hard year, and sifting through his things has given me purpose and a basis for connection with other people.

The timing of it is a blessing I didn’t expect in the middle of grief.