After my dad died, dealing with his mail gave me an insight into his life. It was also incredibly painful.

• After my dad died, I forwarded all his mail to my house so I could take care of it.
• Receiving letters addressed to him was harder than I anticipated.

The last piece of mail my father ever received was an impersonal newsletter from a folk festival. It arrived more than a year after he died, long after all other correspondence dried up. As his executor, I knew I no longer needed a mail-forwarding service. But when the time came to cancel, I faltered.

Practical information on mail forwarding is readily available, but you may need help preparing for the emotional journey of answering the mail of the dead. It can be a gloomy, tedious, frustrating, enraging — and sometimes joyful — task.

I had different experiences with companies and services

At first, I tackled my duties with vigor, keen to demonstrate that I was a faithful daughter. An intriguing mix of mail crossed my threshold in the early days, and I was fascinated by the bric-a-brac of my father's life. He received personalized grocery-store coupons, which included discounts on turnips. My steadfast effort to keep up with correspondence was met with gestures of kindness when I least expected it. In particular, a conversation with an airline-rewards-program representative who couldn't have been more sympathetic was incredibly heartening.

However, when Christmas came and went without a single card bearing the now-familiar sticker of the mail forwarding service, my grief hung heavily. I anticipated cards from distant relatives and long-lost colleagues who hadn't heard of my father's death, and the silence cut to the quick. My father was a gruff man. Could it be that few people kept in touch with him over the years? Was a sinister elf deliberately withholding these personal missives when I needed them the most? Had something gone wrong during the holiday period?

In other cases, I was ticked off when companies wouldn't respond to me. A roadside-assistance program was relentless in its renewal efforts, even after I personally visited its office to present a death certificate.

I'm not the only one dealing with this

Dealing with unresponsive correspondents is a painful task. Sonya Boersman, an Ottawa lactation consultant, knows it well. She was annoyed when one persistent organization kept sending solicitous mail to her deceased mother-in-law. The experience was hurtful for her father-in-law, as the organization in question was the hospital where she was treated, trying to drum up support.

Robin Catalano, a Hudson Valley journalist, said she can relate. "I received collection notices after my mother passed, as she had a lot of outstanding debt. It stirred a mixture of sadness over her passing — which was complicated to begin with — and anger at both my mother for racking up a lot of credit-card debt and the credit-card company, which was attempting to harass me into paying, although I had no legal obligation to do so," Catalano told Insider.

There's little recourse when an organization won't stop mailing your dearly departed. Even returning the envelopes won't work. I spoke to a Canada Post clerk — who requested anonymity to protect their job — who told me that she could sense the frustration of survivors when mail is sent back. The handwriting on returned mail is fraught with emotions. But while writing "Return to Sender" might work for personal letters, it's essentially worthless for all other correspondence, she told me. As such, those responsible for their loved ones' mail never know when an ordinary day might be turned upside down with grief.

It was our last connection

As time passed, I was eager yet wary to conclude the process. I saw little value in continuing to pay for a mail-forwarding service. Clearly, my father was no longer receiving mail — but what if there was just one more piece? Canceling it would sever one of our last tangible connections. It would conclude my duties as an executor but also indicate that there was nothing more I could do for him. Still, I couldn't think of a single reason to continue with the service. When my reminder notice arrived on schedule, I knew what to do.

Yet my fingers hovered over the "renew" button one more time.