By Dustin Grinnell
I directed Mrs. Powell to sit and make herself comfortable. She lowered herself into the chair at the round table in the lobby of my office slowly, her frail, ninety-year-old frame eventually settling into it.
“How’s your health, Mrs. Powell?” I asked. This is how I approached most conversations in which a client asked if they could meet suddenly. Usually, it meant they had gotten some bad news from their doctor, and I suspected as much with Mrs. Powell.
And, indeed, she had. It was rare, and doctors didn’t know what to call it, but it would take her life, and soon—within weeks. We hadn’t been close, but I was sorry to hear it. I never liked getting this kind of news.
“I trust you will ensure everything is in order when I pass?” she asked.
“Yes, of course.” I explained that I would take care of everything for her, according to the end-of-life plans we’d created together, from where she’d like her ashes spread to who would sell her stuff and where the proceeds would go. She didn’t have much to her name, but her condo would sell for at least half a million dollars, and that money would be distributed to her son and granddaughter.
“I’ll make calls, write letters, and make visits as needed,” I continued. “I’ll start by having all of your mail forwarded to my office, so I can get a sense of what will need to be closed down—utilities, credit cards, accounts, and so on.”
Mrs. Powell nodded, thanked me and said she had a large binder at home that included all of her records and important information. It would be nice to have, but usually I didn’t need a roadmap. I already had her wishes in my files, and for everything else, I could find it out through my own investigative work. I’d been in this business for twenty years and was skilled in the art of closing down someone’s life.
I looked at Mrs. Powell, who seemed tired, and placed my hand softly on hers. “You have nothing to worry about. You can take comfort in knowing you’ve chosen me and that everything will be taken care of when the time comes.”
“Thank you, Michael.”
I helped her out of the chair, letting her use my arm for balance, then led her to the front door, where I thanked her for stopping by.
“Take care of yourself, Mrs. Powell.”
A month later, faster than anyone had expected, she was gone.
As her fiduciary, I began the activities associated with my duties. I had her mail forwarded to my office in Santa Barbara and started calling to shut down internet and cable, and other utilities. I dug into her accounts, bringing the money from her checking into a new account where I would pool all of her funds and then distribute them to the designated family members.
I called her son in Boston, and granddaughter, Ella, in Los Angeles, to inform them of her passing. Her son said he wouldn’t be able to fly to the west coast—though I got the sense, he just didn’t want to—but his daughter, Ella, said she would be happy to go through her grandmother’s possessions. I then called my realtor and began the process of listing and selling the condo.
My work as a “death cleaner,” as some had called me, was efficient and clinical. I seldom felt much for my clients, except for some natural sympathy that anyone’s passing brought. My relations were always professional, even transactional. It had been my sense that one couldn’t run a business if they got attached to every client, so I kept them at arm’s length. Generally speaking, I was satisfied with my place in the world; I had found a niche, something my old law school friends envied. Lately, I had been wondering if it was time for something new. The job felt stale, like I was just going through the motions.
A couple days later, I was on the phone with Mrs. Powell’s gas company when I got a call from an unknown number. After finishing my call, I listened to the message the caller had left. It was from Mrs. Powell’s granddaughter, Ella, who said that she’d be in Santa Barbara tomorrow and was wondering if I’d be able to meet her at her grandmother’s condo in Goleta and let her in, so she could go through her belongings and decide what to send home in boxes. I called her back and said I’d be happy to meet her.
The next day, I drove over to Mrs. Powell’s senior living facility, which wasn’t far from my office. I parked my car and walked the narrow brick pathway that wound through the few dozen condos.
When I got to Mrs. Powell’s condo, I saw a woman in her late thirties with her head tilted toward the sky, seemingly admiring the clouds, or perhaps just enjoying the warm June sun on her face. I recognized her as Mrs. Powell’s granddaughter.
As I got closer, her hazel-colored eyes met mine. “Mr. Hall?” She brushed her brunette hair away from her ear.
“Call me Michael, please,” I said, extending my hand. “When did you get in?”
“A few hours ago.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’m still quite jet-lagged, so please forgive me—my head’s in a fog.”
“No worries. Will your father be joining us?”
She shook her head. “Just me.”
Mrs. Powell’s son—Ella’s father—was a surgeon at a Boston hospital, and a busy one, according to his mother.
I gestured toward the condo. “Ready?”
Ella nodded solemnly and we went into the condo. Inside, it smelled sharp and sterile, like the kind of antiseptic they use in hospital exam rooms.
Ella walked around the living room, into the kitchen, with her hands clasped behind her back. She had an easy-going, even delicate way about her.
Her eyes eventually landed on old childhood pictures of her with her dad and grandmother on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard, where, Mrs. Powell had previously told me, her son had taken Ella, an only child, every summer while she was growing up. “I’d like to pack up these photos.”
“I can have the movers pack them carefully in boxes and we can ship them to your place in LA. We can send anything to your dad, too.”
I then informed her that the condo had already been sold, and I gave her an extra key and told her she could come and go as she pleased over the next few days until the condo had to be vacated and cleaned.
She thanked me, and I said that I had to leave for another appointment. A client of mine, a gentleman in his sixties, had died of a heart attack and I needed to meet the director of a funeral home to pay for cremation and the funeral services that the family would reimburse me for when they could.
As I was leaving, Ella caught my attention. “I was wondering if you’d like to get coffee, perhaps tomorrow, to talk more about this process.”
I said that’d be fine and suggested we meet at a coffee shop I liked on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara.
We met the next morning at the busy coffee shop. When we both had our drinks—she had an iced coffee, I had a double espresso—I asked what she did for work, intending to make small talk, and she said she was a writer for television.
“Any shows I might know?” I asked, curious about the life of a screenwriter.
She listed a couple of shows on a popular streaming platform that I had seen. I enjoyed one more than the other, but I was impressed nonetheless. “Very cool.”
“And what about you? You’re a ‘death’ cleaner, the internet says?”
I chuckled. “I prefer fiduciary, but yes, I help people and their families with all the things that need to be done when folks pass away.”
“Doesn’t it get sad? People dying and grieving. Seems grim.”
I shrugged. “It’s a way to make a living. Plus, I don’t get too close to my clients.”
“Keep your distance, huh? Doesn’t hurt as much when they die. Smart.”
She nailed it, I said, nodding, but I wanted to get off the subject given my growing ambivalence about my chosen career.
“Were you close to your grandmother?”
She sipped from her coffee. “As close as you can get to someone who lives a hundred miles away.” She smirked. “Our family likes to keep their distance, too.”
I had noticed that it was difficult getting Mrs. Powell to talk about personal matters other than in a detached, high-level way. At the time of our planning, I’d preferred it, but sitting across from her granddaughter, I wondered how it might’ve impacted Ella. I also thought about her dad, clearly not coming to California, and I had no clue where her mom even was. Anyway, time to get to business, I thought.
“So, why’d you want to get coffee? I have everything pretty much handled with your grandmother.”
She nodded, then bit her lip. “Um, I might need to keep you on for a bit longer.”
“Your mom or dad need a fiduciary?”
“No, I need to hire you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
Ella went quiet for a second, then dropped news I definitely wasn’t ready for.
“A few months ago, I found out I have a brain tumor, inoperable.”
I stuttered. “How… long?”
“I probably won’t see the end of the year.”
I couldn’t believe it, and for a few seconds, I did nothing but stare at the vibrant woman across from me. So young, seemingly so full of life. I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t have to say you’re sorry, or anything like that—I’ve gotten enough of that already. I could have stayed in bed until the end with everyone taking care of me, but I want to live as much as I can until the lights go out.”
I exhaled, open to helping her in any way that she needed. “What can I do?”
“It wasn’t until I worked with my grandmother on all of this end-of-life stuff that I realized dying was complicated. Life’s difficult enough, but dying is its own level of hard.”
I’d heard this sentiment plenty of times. When someone dies, it’s not just grief you inherit; it’s a tangle of paperwork, passwords, and red tape that turns mourning into a second job.
“I can help get all your wishes in writing, draw up medical instructions, take care of your finances, and so on.”
“I imagine I will need help with those things, but right now, I was thinking of working on something else.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to help me do some ‘cleaning’ while I’m still alive.”
“I don’t follow.”
Ella explained that she feels like her life has been a slow, steady accumulation of things that she never truly chose—jobs, obligations, even relationships. And now, facing the end of her life, she didn’t know which parts of her life were genuinely hers.
This was most unusual. I thought about flatly rejecting her proposal, but I could tell she was desperate. Ella seemed so thoughtful and kind, and I found myself wanting to help her, if not spend a little bit more time with her.
And so, we sat there for hours as her wild idea sparked a fire between us. I agreed to embark on a series of excursions with her. Ella called them mini-cleans in which we’d examine something in her life to see if it was no longer useful, weighing her down, cluttering her life—and if so, she’d find a way to let it go. We started with an old friend of hers from college, who she used to play soccer with.
When we showed up for drinks at a trendy brewery not far from the coffee shop, her friend Jenna was late. She spent the first ten minutes obsessing over what to order, and then the next half-hour mostly talking about herself and unloading all the problems she’d been having with her husband, who she found lazy and vain. When Jenna finally asked something, it was about Ella and me.
“So, are you guys like dating?”
“Oh no,” Ella replied. “He’s—”
She didn’t seem to know what to say, so I jumped in and said the first thing that came into my mind. “I’m a digital marketing consultant, helping her with her website and social media presence.”
Jenna beamed. “I’ve been telling her for years, her Insta needs serious help. Her job’s insanely cool! She could be posting behind-the-scenes stuff from the writers’ room, or a movie set.” She sipped from her drink. “I’m not a big fan of social media, but you have to post consistently, right? It’s like having a second job. Do you know I can’t for the life of me get my husband to post a picture of us together? Refuses to do it!” She threw up her arms, almost knocking her drink over. “It’s like I don’t exist!”
In the hour we spent together, Jenna let Ella say maybe twenty words and I didn’t dare try to say much; I just watched as this “friend” of Ella’s steamrolled her in conversation. Unfortunately, tragically, this didn’t leave room for Ella to share the terrible news. There was no mention of cancer, no mention of having months to live. Jenna had all the problems, all of which seemed rather trivial compared to Ella’s.
When we left the brewery, I could see on Ella’s face that she hadn’t enjoyed herself, and might’ve thought it a mistake to invite Jenna out. Either way, it was obvious to us both that she would have to let Jenna go.
We wandered down State Street for hours, the sun sliding low over the storefronts while Ella pointed out weird little things in shop windows that made her laugh. We ducked into gift shops and record stores just to keep talking; I don’t even remember half of what we said, just that it felt easy.
At a taco stand on the corner, we shared chips and guac, our hands brushing a couple times, both of us pretending it didn’t happen. I caught myself leaning in when she talked, like I didn’t want to miss a word, and once or twice I saw her watching me when she thought I wasn’t looking. By the time the sky went soft and pink, something between us had shifted—nothing big, just enough to notice.
On the way back to her car, we chatted about what the next clean might be. She said Jenna was right that social media was a waste, and that she could probably spend some time scrubbing her digital life. I thought it was a good idea.
She pulled out her phone and, without a second thought, deleted her Instagram and Facebook. When I Googled her name, I found an old blog titled Texts and the City.
While she was scrolling on her phone, I clicked on a post titled, When His Apartment Says ‘Nope’. I read a line aloud: “Jared’s apartment had the ambiance of a gym bag and more pizza boxes than seating options.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh my God, that blog’s still up?” She found the website on her phone and deleted it without hesitating. “Bye!”
“Bummer,” I said, “I was kind of looking forward to reading it.”
She punched me in the arm playfully.
When we got back to Ella’s car it was dark, and she said the only thing that made the night tolerable was having me there.
“Just doing my job,” I said with a grin.
As Ella was getting in her car, I had a thought—a homework assignment for her. “When you get back to LA tomorrow, go through your stuff. Make piles for things to keep, give away, or throw away. I can visit in a couple days and we can go through it and I can make arrangements to see that it gets to where it should go.”
“Love it.”
When I got home, I had another idea for Ella. I decided to have her create a “reverse will.” Instead of deciding who gets what after she died, Ella would choose to give things away to friends, family, and even strangers who needed them before she passed.
When I arrived at her place in Silver Lake few days later, I told her about the reverse will and she said she’d get started tomorrow. She walked over to a few waist-high stacks of books. Everything was sorted into neat little piles—books, some clothes, household stuff. “These can go to the library or the shelter,” she said.
I examined the books, admiring her collection. I pulled out Aristotle’s Poetics, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, plays by Arthur Miller. “Sure you want to give these away?”
“I can’t read books when I’m dead.”
She walked over to a road bike propped against the wall near her kitchen. “I’ve ridden this three times. Time to pass it on to someone else to ignore it.”
She then went to a box on the kitchen counter, and lifted the lid, showing me a box of envelopes, letters, and old print photos, some of which showed her with various people who looked to be friends and photos with men, who looked to be boyfriends.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
“Pics from high school, college, and running around LA with friends after college. There are a few things in here I’d like to keep; everything else we can throw away.”
She picked up a picture showing her, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with a young man of similar age. He had his arm around her and they were both smiling brightly. So young, so much life to live, and it was all getting cut short. It made me sad for her.
She ran into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and grabbed a lighter. She then snagged a small trash can and brought it out onto her condo’s balcony. I knew what she was doing. She wanted to ceremoniously burn old photos and letters she didn’t want to keep.
Dusk had fallen and the sky had just started to darken when we’d gotten on her balcony. She set the trash can on the floor, threw paper and photos into it, struck a match, and tossed it in. We watched the flames dance in the can as the light faded around us. After the material had mostly burned down, Ella poured water into the can to extinguish the fire. She then turned to me. “I found something while I was going through a junk drawer and I was trying to decide whether I should keep it.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it and handed it to me.
At the top of the paper was written, “The Someday List.” I scanned the list of fifteen things she wanted to do someday, presumably before she died. “See a sunset on the beach,” “ride a motorcycle,” “scuba dive.”
“What’s on your list?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“C’mon, there’s got to be something!”
I thought back to college, when I almost studied abroad in Switzerland, but bailed at the last second. “There’s a place called Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. It looks gorgeous—alpine peaks, chalet-style homes, big cliffs with water falling off the side and disappearing into the air above the valley.”
“I love that for you.”
I smiled weakly, not knowing when or if I’d ever visit. I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a vacation.
She grabbed the list from my hand. “Honestly, I don’t really want to scuba dive, or do most of the things on that list, but check out number eleven.”
My eyes landed on that number. “Sing karaoke?” I glanced at her to see that she was smirking. She looked off the balcony. “There’s a little pub right around the corner from here. And, guess what? They have karaoke.”
I cracked a smile. “Absolutely not.”
She nodded playfully, squinting her eyes.
“No,” I repeated, with a laugh.
She grabbed the keys to her apartment off the kitchen counter. I came into the kitchen, scratching the back of my head.
“If you need to do any vocal warm-ups, you should start now,” she said. “I want you to really bring it. I already have the song picked out.”
None of my pleading got through to her. We were going to the pub and we were singing karaoke. She wouldn’t tell me the song, so I was left in suspense.
Forty-five minutes later, we were at the front of the bar, standing in front of a large screen and two huge speakers, holding microphones. I still didn’t know what song we were singing until the melody kicked in, and I recognized it right away.
“Northern Attitude” by Noah Kahan. Damn, I loved that song. And I knew why she’d chosen it. It captured how I used emotional distance as a kind of armor, even as I longed for the very connection I kept at bay beneath a façade of aloofness, even coldness.
The lyrics rolled across the screen and Ella kicked us off.
Breathin’ in, breathin’ out
How you been? Settled down?
Feelin’ right? Feelin’ proud?
How’re your kids? Where are they now?
As I watched Ella sing, I found that the world sort of fell away. She looked so graceful, so dignified, so lovely. Just then she nodded in my direction to take the next verse. I did the best I could, trying to match Kahan’s soulful vibe.
You build a boat, you build a life
You lose your friends, you lose your wife
You settle in, to routine
Where are you? What does it mean?
As the song hit its peak, I glanced over and saw Ella smiling at me, soft and affectionate. She pointed at me, then at herself, like she was saying the chorus is ours.
If I get too close
And I’m not how you hoped
Forgive my northern attitude
Oh, I was raised out in the cold
We sang together, leaning into each other, holding the mics close to our faces, pretending we were singers in front of adoring fans. As the chorus continued, I put my arm around her and we lifted our heads to the ceiling and belted out the powerful lyrics.
If the sun don’t rise
‘Til the summertime
Forgive my northern attitude
Oh, I was raised on little light
When we stumbled out of the bar, we walked home not talking much, just letting the buzz of the moment stay with us with big stupid smiles on our faces.
Ella’s shoulder rubbed against me, then her hand brushed against mine, and then she interlocked our fingers, sending a quiet warmth through my chest. When we reached the doorstep of her apartment complex, she said, “Tomorrow’s a big day.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“For our next clean, I arranged a meeting with my mom. She lives out in Corona and agreed to drive into the city to talk with me.”
I’d learned enough in my interactions with Ella that she hadn’t stayed in touch with her mother, Linda, on account of the fact that when she was young, she abandoned the family—a victim, her father claimed, of alcohol and various other substances.
Knowing how personal the meeting seemed, I said, “I can sit this one out. I’m sure you’d like some private time with her.”
Ella looked at the ground for a few seconds, biting her lip. “No,” she said, “I’d like you to come too, if you’re available… and up for it.”
“Okay,” I replied, genuinely happy to go.
She then leaned in close to me and pressed her lips softly against mine. Then she pulled back, opened her eyes, and said, “See you in the morning.”
“See you then.”
When the front door to her apartment complex closed, I skipped into a jog, feeling a burst of energy that I hadn’t felt in years. As I drove home, I was reminded of my usual professional dynamic, how I stay detached, a little aloof, keep clients at arm’s length.
Ella had pushed past every line I’d carefully drawn.
For a second, I considered calling her, saying this was crossing a line, that I could lose my license, that this just wasn’t how I operated. But I let the thought go almost as fast as it came. Maybe meeting Ella was my way out of all this. And honestly, I realized I’d rather risk everything than stop seeing her.
The next morning, I met Ella outside a sandwich shop in Highland Park. She looked paler than usual, had bags under her eyes, and seemed to move with less vigor.
“How are you?” I asked, careful with the words, wondering if things had taken a turn. Was it getting worse? How much time was left? I was reminded of the line I used with clients when things were slipping: ‘How’s your health?’
“Didn’t sleep well. Anxious, I guess.”
We walked inside and took our place in line, and I asked, “How long has it been since you’ve seen your mom?”
She thought for a moment. “Fifteen years, maybe.”
We were sitting at a table enjoying ourselves and talking about karaoke—I was sarcastically suggesting that I had perfect pitch—when a heavyset woman with gray hair appeared in the doorway. She approached our table with a slight limp.
Ella’s back straightened, and she smiled awkwardly in the woman’s direction. She stood to greet her, seeming not to know where to put her hands, then nodded to our table. They both sat on the bench and Ella introduced me as a friend.
I smiled, thinking it was nice to graduate from consultant to friend, though we both knew I was way more than that at this point.
“How are you?” Linda said. “I was glad to hear from you.”
Over the course of several minutes, Ella brought her mother up to speed on the last decade and a half. She talked about going to college at UCLA, studying filmmaking and concentrating in screenwriting, getting a prestigious internship at Disney, then finally, after an incredible amount of effort, landing a job in a writer’s room, where she and other creatives shaped stories for television.
Her mother smiled proudly. “I always knew you’d do great things.” She looked down and scratched at an imperfection in the table. “Guess I can’t take too much credit.”
Ella was generous and told her not to worry about it too much, that she would be perfectly fine if she just dropped the overstuff bag of guilt she was clearly carrying around. She said she’d seen friends struggle with addiction, substance abuse, and knew how hard it was to get clear of whatever chemical had its hooks in you.
Her mother looked relieved by that answer. “And you two?” she said, glancing at me and then back at her. “I don’t look at my friends the way you two look at each other.”
I chuckled nervously, not expecting her to be so blunt, but made an attempt at humor. “She’s paying me to be here.” I winked at Ella.
The irony that she had actually hired me wasn’t lost on me.
“He’s a lawyer,” Ella said, rolling her eyes. “He helped with Grammy’s end-of-life stuff after she passed—getting her cremated, selling her condo, closing her accounts.” She bumped her shoulder against mine. “He’s very good at his job.”
“I was sorry to hear about your dad’s mom,” Linda replied. “She was a nice lady.” There was a brief silence before she continued. “So, I hope we can meet more.”
“I’d like that,” Ella said.
“I have work at a dispensary in Bakersfield starting next week, so I’ll be gone for a couple of months, but maybe we can grab dinner when I get back?”
Ella seemed to suppress a wince.
A lump rose up in my throat. How far advanced would her illness be in two months? Would she even be around then?
As we finished up, it became clear that Ella wasn’t going to talk about being sick. I didn’t blame her. I got the sense that her mother would have trouble with the reality, anyway. Sure, she’d be sympathetic, but I doubted she’d cancel her work plans, and why make her feel guiltier than she already was?
As we rode an Uber across town back to her apartment, I wanted to talk about her cancer, ask her what she might need from me, express that I was stricken with sadness, and was never quite sure where to put it.
I was looking out the window when she put a hand on mine, comforting me. Then she thanked me for meeting her mom and said she couldn’t have done it without me.
“I think I’ll keep her,” she said.
I smiled, still feeling a little raw.
“Dinner at my place tonight?” she asked.
No words were needed. She knew I was in.
Ella cooked us a delicious meal. That night, we talked and talked about anything and everything—our families, our careers, and how strongly we felt toward each other. We both admitted to it being crazy to start something given “the circumstances,” she said in air quotes, but we were hardly in control of what was happening between us anymore. An affection had drawn us together, despite the futility of it all. We went to bed that night and afterward held each other in each other’s arms until we both fell asleep.
In those last few months, we soaked up every moment together. Whenever we had the chance, we’d get away—exploring Yosemite Valley, cruising down Route 1, sipping wine and relaxing on California beaches. With every trip, our love grew stronger.
It was the most unusual experience falling deeper and deeper in love with each other, while hoping, wishing, praying we had more time, but despite our wishes, her doctors said nothing was working and we had weeks, maybe days.
Eventually, Ella had to take medical leave from work because treatment had made her too weak to work, even though it’s what she loved to do the most. I stayed at her place while she got care at a hospital in the city. I brought her to every appointment, held her hand when bad news was delivered, and hugged her as tight as I could when panic and fear took hold in the middle of the night.
One night around five o’clock, she said she wanted to make a few amendments to her will. She didn’t have much money, but said had “a little gold” from her shows, and she wanted some of it to go to her mom and dad—and some of it to me.
“Me? What? No, Ella.”
But she insisted, saying that she was going to cover a trip to Switzerland.
“Ella…” I replied, shaking my head.
“Take some of my ashes with you to Lauterbrunnen.”
“Please, don’t talk about—” I burst into tears, I couldn’t help it. It was a big, uncontrollable cry, and in a turning of the tables, she was holding and consoling me as I wept. I realized that I’d been holding back these emotions for months, my love for her keeping me buoyed through all the dark moments.
She rolled over and cupped my face with her hands. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I blinked away the tears. “I wish we had more time. I wish I could do something to take away this wicked disease. I wish you’d never gotten sick.”
“But if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have ever met each other.”
“Yeah, but you’d be okay, and, who knows, maybe we would have still found each other.”
“Honey?” she whispered.
I turned my head up to meet her eyes.
“Can you help me onto the balcony?”
I looked into her eyes. She looked so weak, so fragile. I would do anything for her, but I didn’t want her to overexert herself. “Let’s just stay in bed.”
“I thought of something from my someday list.”
I helped her out of bed with both hands and let her put most of her weight on me as we passed through the sliding door and onto the balcony. Steadying herself by holding the railing, she gazed out across the horizon as the sun was setting. Then, I knew why she’d asked me to help her out onto the deck. “See a sunset on a beach,” I whispered.
She rested her head on my shoulder. “Close enough.”
Two weeks later, she was gone.
I spent several weeks in a state of shock and deep sadness that spilled out of me in unexpected places. It didn’t matter whether I was at a grocery store, making a coffee run, or out for a walk around the neighborhood. Even if my mind was blank and I wasn’t thinking of losing Ella, I would break into tears and sob.
Even now, a year later, my eyes still get misty whenever I think about the seven months I spent with Ella, a beautiful soul, “cleaning” her life before death, building an unusual love story before the end.
I did make it to Switzerland, finally, to that picturesque town in the Swiss Alps. At the summit of a little peak with breathtaking views of snow-capped mountains, I opened a palm-sized container that held Ella’s ashes and scattered them into the chilly alpine air. The sun was just setting, too, and I smiled thinking of her, knowing she’d love the view.
The time off had done me good. I’d thought about quitting, switching things up, maybe even changing careers. But in the end, I realized that cleaning up after people died—handling the mess, the paperwork, the details—had been its own kind of service to the community. It brought real relief to my clients, especially to grieving families who had no idea what needed to be done, while I did.
So, I went back to work. This time with more purpose. And maybe now, I allowed myself to get a little closer to the people I helped. Not just ticking boxes or asking about bank accounts and utility bills, but really sitting with them. Asking how they felt about their life. Whether they thought they’d left anything unfinished. Whether there was someone they should call, just to say hi, before they couldn’t anymore.
Dustin Grinnell is a Boston-based writer whose novel The Empathy Academy (Atmosphere Press) was named a distinguished favorite in the 2023 NYC Big Book Awards, and his short story collection The Healing Book (Finishing Line Press) won a 2024 Best Indie Book Award. He holds an MFA from Lasell’s Solstice Program and a master’s in physiology from Penn State.