 How the Polaroids I Couldn’t Save Became Fifty Memories
I want to thank the apartment manager at Grafton Place (Tamra Youngblut) for hanging up on me. If she hadn’t, I might never have felt the urgency to finally write my tribute for Keith, “Family Snapshot.” I sent it to her hours after the disastrous call. I never expected a reply the next morning, especially with these three words: “Beautiful. Thank you.” I’m still not sure how a week of reasonable requests ended with hostility one day and kindness the next — before everything became a matter of policy. How did this all start? I learned that my brother-in-law died via a Facebook message. The coroner was unable to reach Fran, the next-of-kin due to a typographical error. Somehow the next person they tried to call was someone he had not spoken to in years — the wife of their late brother who died in 2003. I had to tell my husband, Fran, that his only living brother was dead. As the sole surviving next-of-kin, Fran was the only person who could arrange what to do with Keith’s remains. That was his top priority. In a highly stressful job with a lot of responsibilities, he didn’t have time to find out who to contact about his brother’s belongings. He didn’t even know his address, just the city where he lived, Burlington, Washington. Fran relayed the basic information about what happened to Keith after his conversations with the coroner and detective assigned to the case. There was a small fire due to the stove being left on, sprinklers went off. An autopsy was scheduled. My first call was to the detective. I told him the thought of Keith not having a funeral and his possessions being thrown in the trash was too much to bear. He told me there were regulations and that wouldn’t happen right away. He described the state of Keith’s apartment and that’s when I first learned about the Polaroids. There were stacks of them all over. Immediately, I felt compelled to save them — fragments of his life that could disappear in an instant. After confirming Keith’s address with another family member, my second call was to Grafton Place where Keith had moved 6 months prior. The person who answered the phone couldn’t have been more polite and offered her condolences. She quickly acknowledged that she didn’t have any answers to the questions I might have, but that the manager would be back soon and would give me a call. She said this at least three times, even mentioning that it would be in about an hour. As Friday afternoon turned to night — even with the three-hour time difference — I knew the call wasn’t coming. I was rattled. How could someone promise a call back only to ignore me? Especially after a death. I felt like we didn’t matter. That Saturday, I went out to run and couldn’t stop ruminating. Had I said something wrong? Would she not talk to me because I’m not next-of-kin but married to him? If I can’t take care of this, who will? I came home from my run and sent an email to the manager telling her how upsetting it was not to receive the call I was expecting. It felt unkind and unprofessional. Several hours later I received a response. I was too afraid to read it, so I sent it to my twin sister. She immediately became livid. Apparently Tamra had italicized the word “normal” in the first sentence of her response and that set Malinda off on a tirade. Who does that? Who doesn’t just apologize and leave it at that, but instead lists a bunch of excuses for why they didn’t have time to do the humane thing — respond as quickly as they could to someone who had just experienced a tragic loss? Eventually I read the message and was surprised by the memories she shared of Keith. It sounded nothing like the description other concerned friends and family members had shared of his demeanor over the past few months — years, even. When I sent Tamra’s message to my other sister, she pointed out two things that stuck with me. “Nice of her to write a paragraph about Keith. That was caring.” But she also said something else. “Salvageable is a weird word to use.” Then it struck me. Some of his belongings had already ended up in the trash. What was still left of Keith? When I finally talked to Tamra, I thought it was important to start by explaining why I was so upset. The waiting, the broken promises, when it could have all been prevented with a short condolence email and scheduled follow-up. Emotions run high in situations involving death. Once again she rattled off a list of excuses. Mallory, the woman who had been so pleasant on the phone, wasn’t even a full-time employee. She had things she was legally required to do for other residents — details that didn’t answer the question I actually needed answered. Little did I know I would learn more about why she hadn’t returned my call than about the contents of the storage unit holding Keith’s possessions. The conversation didn’t get much better from there. She said somewhat glibly, “So you have questions for me?” Uh, well …. I’m thinking — don’t you have rules and regulations to explain to me about how this is supposed to work?! My only concern: is there any possible way to quickly retrieve just the irreplaceable personal items like photographs to help memorialize him? She mentioned locked doors, but not what was behind them. Despite knowing we lived on the other side of the country, she casually mentioned needing to come in person with some kind of legal document and photo ID. I stopped her right there, reminding her that we are not local. My head was spinning. How could she not be prepared for this call? What was going on here? She mentioned that in all the properties she’s managed she had never handled a situation like this before. That’s when I said, “Then maybe I need to be talking to someone who has.” There were so many tonal shifts in that call. Starting with the excuses, again. But then sharing she had seen him the day he died to sign for a package, a new camera he seemed excited about. She got defensive when I asked about alarms, sprinklers, and emergency response times. I mentioned a news article I found which she said was “inaccurate” and “rumors.” She interrupted me when I tried brainstorming hypothetical ways we could retrieve only the most important items, the photographs, but she repeatedly promised we wouldn’t be “brushed off,” they just needed to follow protocol. Overall, her top priority was covering herself and the company from fraud and lawsuits rather than protecting Keith’s legacy. I was so livid after that call ended that I immediately reached out to one of Keith’s friends who Fran had met during his 2024 visit to see his brother in San Francisco. Two Xanax and two hours later I ended the call feeling I knew the situation with Keith much better. I was grateful someone was willing to share in all the emotions and pain I thought I was going through alone. Over the next several days I consulted multiple websites and contacted several law offices trying to understand Fran’s legal rights. Could he have personal photos returned to him by mail? I didn’t care about anything of monetary value, I wanted the Polaroids. Photos are important to me, and the thought that Keith’s art — one of the things that gave him joy — could be carelessly discarded broke my heart. But the thing was, I didn’t even know if his Polaroid collection was even in storage. Was it possible that someone had already thrown it away? I felt helpless. That’s why in my first email after our call I asked for an inventory or photos of what was in storage and what was discarded. I referred to Washington law (RCW 59.18.595). Washington law requires landlords to notify next-of-kin, but knowing if something exists and being able to recover it are not the same thing. The call was on March 2. I sent follow-up emails on March 3 (no response) and March 5. No response. Every day that went by I grew more desperate for answers. Keith died on February 23, 2026. By March 6, it occurred to me that maybe I was being ignored because I hadn’t provided proof of who I was. I wanted to show that I had done my research on what might be required for the release of some — any — information about what items had been secured. We sent a notarized Affidavit of Heirship, photo IDs for both Fran and me, as well as the intake form for the institution handling Keith’s remains. No response. Fran and I struggled with how far we were willing to go, especially when we didn’t know what we’d find. The logistics seemed impossible. The only way we’d be able to get these special pieces of Keith that mattered would be if the apartment complex was reasonable and willing to work with us. That was clearly not the case. It took exactly one week to receive a response. A short email sent from her Samsung Galaxy S25 smartphone. They required a court order and ID to be provided in-person to release any information or belongings. How in the world could this be true? Fran was authorized to make the decision on what to do with Keith’s body, but not with anything else? That was the moment it stopped being about Keith and became a matter of policy. After that, there was nowhere left for the conversation to go. Luckily I had an appointment scheduled with another lawyer through my EAP an hour after receiving her message, so I started asking ChatGPT to help me prepare a list of questions with this new information. I had sent all the documentation to the law office ahead of time, only to find out the lawyer hadn’t looked at it because it was just a consultation and he couldn’t actually give me legal advice. “Ok then why are we even talking?” came out of my mouth unfiltered. “They are being dismissive because they can get away with it,” he explained. “You’re 3,000 miles away.” If management takes the hardest line possible, requiring a court order and an in-person visit to retrieve items from a storage unit, the contents of which weren’t even hinted at, maybe we’d just give up. It didn’t take long for me to start crying again. I worried that the memory of Keith would disappear the same way his personalized Facebook profile picture vanished a week before he died. When I noticed the default image for Keith on Messenger, instinctively I thought, “This is not good.” Why isn’t his picture there anymore? I couldn’t even remember what it had been. If only I had taken a screenshot and saved it before it was gone. All I wanted was his Polaroid collection so I could honor his memory. Malinda had said bluntly again and again, “It’s already gone.” Even though my sister was furious with how I was being treated by Tamra, she had already made peace with the situation. She said she would preserve and share the Instagram posts that Keith had made publicly — the gallery of moon shots, spiders, and birds. When the 30-minute call with the lawyer ended I decided I had to call Tamra to confirm that they would not accept the one form that didn’t require a lawyer to complete: a Small Estate Affidavit. Every answer led to the same place: Court order. Court order. Court order. The same person who had promised I wouldn’t be “brushed off” now sounded like she was reading from a corporately approved script. When I asked to speak to someone else or for the names of the other members of the “team” she said no. She directed me to the website to look for what I already knew wasn’t there. No names. No contact information. I did everything I could. I left voicemails. I filled out online forms. No response. At that point I said I was trying to appeal to her as another human being who knew and maybe cared about this person I was fighting for. Court order. Then I snapped. “You know it was suicide,” I uttered in despair. “No, there’s still an investigation!” she retorted. Even though there isn’t an official cause of death determined by the coroner, it’s clear from my conversations with Keith’s friends, family, and the detective that this was not a natural death. All I wanted to do was preserve something that was important to Keith. Keith called the Polaroids his “collection.” That word implied art. Meaning. After Tamra hung up on me I called Fran to let him know. He said we knew it was going to be a long shot from the beginning, but he appreciated my efforts. I still felt like I failed Keith. I knew it was over. There was nothing more I could do. I had to accept it and move on. When I first posted the notice of Keith’s death on my Facebook page all I had to share were three photos and a short message. As this saga with Grafton Place dragged on, I was more determined than ever to make a difference. If I couldn’t save his Polaroids, maybe I could still save some stories. I individually contacted hundreds of Keith’s social connections. The responses trickled in then grew. I personally communicated with over 50 friends, coworkers, and family members who shared stories I could add to the memorial webpage and also received simple condolences from dozens more. I collected an incredible set of stories and memories. And photographs. With all the information I gathered, I was able to write an obituary, so the only thing left was to write about my own story with Keith. I sent one final letter to Tamra asking only for two things: Keith’s Polaroid collection and any family photographs that might have survived the fire and sprinklers. I made it clear we could not travel to Washington — this was simply a last appeal for the photographs if they still existed. “In your earlier message you shared how much the staff at Grafton Place enjoyed getting to know Keith and how he would often bring down his photographs to share. Because those photographs meant so much to him, we are hoping it may be possible to recover that small collection of images that represented so much of his life and the time he spent there.” It was a final attempt at courtesy after our last phone call had ended with her hanging up on me. I didn’t expect a response. Now I accept that I may never know whether those photographs were saved or already gone. It took being disrespected to fully respect the memory of Keith. In the end, the collection I saved wasn’t the Polaroids. It was fifty memories. Beautiful. Thank you. 🎶❤️🩹 Postscript Music has always been part of the Connor brothers’ lives, though they rarely agreed on what counted as a good song. I tend to turn to music during moments of crisis or conflict. These songs kept returning as I worked through my quest for Keith’s Polaroids.
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