TELL ME ABOUT IT

Hi, Carolyn: I recently came across an online death notice for an ex-boyfriend. Sadly, he died relatively young, but I’m not too surprised. He battled alcoholism, which is among the many reasons we broke up.

I have a lot of photos from when we were together, whose digital negatives are stored online.

I’m torn between wanting to flush them or offer them to his family, who only know that we broke up on bad terms. Knowing him, he never told them the real problems, so more likely than not they hate me.

Some of the pics are from a trip he did with his dad when they moved our stuff cross-country. My ex had borrowed my camera and later told me how much fun they had and how he and his dad bonded during that long trip. The pics captured those good times.

So here I sit with all these photos that may mean the world to his parents now that he’s gone … or not. Do I reach out to them, or just quietly press “delete”? Nonono! Don’t delete!

The photos are priceless. Gather every one you have of him alone or from the trip with his dad, package them carefully, download their negatives onto the easiest storage format you have available, and ship them to his parents. Keep yourself out of it except to enclose a brief note with your condolences and your recollection of how much fun he had on the trip with his dad.

There’s no universal formula for what grieving loved ones want most, but “lost” photographs and warm memories of the deceased are as close as you’ll ever get to it.