Scan the box of photographs
Boxes of prints are one house fire or one house clearance from being gone. Scanning them takes an afternoon.
The BeingKind editorsPublished How this is written
Why it lands
Family photographs from before the digital era exist as single physical copies in one house, usually the house of the oldest person. When that house is cleared under time pressure after a death, they are routinely lost. Digitising them is entirely mechanical work that preserves something irreplaceable, and it doubles as the best possible excuse for several afternoons of being told stories.
How
A phone camera and a decent app does a good enough job — perfect is the enemy of done here. Ask who is in each picture as you go and type the answer into the filename, which is the part that will be unrecoverable later. Send copies to the whole family.
Related
Tell someone what you actually earn
Pay secrecy is maintained by people like you staying quiet, and it costs the people with least information the most.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Ask what the hardest part actually is
We assume we know which part of someone's situation is worst, and we are usually wrong.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Notice the deadline someone is drowning in
People rarely ask for help at work because asking reads as not coping. Offering removes the admission.
An afternoonFreeA friend
Say the spare room is available before they need it
People leaving bad situations often have nowhere to go for two nights, and cannot bring themselves to ask.
5 minutesFreeA friend1 person did this
Make a hard-day box for a caregiver
The person looking after someone else is usually the last one anybody looks after.
An afternoonMore than $10A caregiver