Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2009.

A funny thing happened on the way to taking responsibility for my own shortcomings.

I wrote recently about the death of my beloved nephew/roommate Bruce Hildreth, who shared my household for 17 years.

I spoke of how wonderfully compatible we were, and how the only time he ever annoyed me was when he failed to wipe the crumbs off the kitchen counter.

That was pretty much true.

Now that Bruce doesn’t live here anymore, I find that someone else — can it be I? — fails to wipe the crumbs up, too.

Life was much easier when I could blame everything on Bruce.

We’re out of milk? Bruce drank it up.

Out of detergent? Bruce should have replaced that empty box.

The bathroom drain isn’t emptying properly?

The TV remote is missing?

My houseplants are dying?

Bruce’s fault, all of it.

Funny thing is, Bruce is gone but the bathtub drain still clogs, the remote still turns up missing and the houseplants still struggle to live.

How much easier it is to blame somebody else.

Apologies, Bruce, for all my snide thoughts.

Taking responsibility for my house and all the chores it requires is not fun. Fortunately, I have a male friend who is taking on much of the responsibility, and my kids are in and out all the time, offering help.

I also have a remarkable neighbor, who has lifted the weight of the world from my back. He is trucking away the mountain of junk that had accumulated in Bruce’s corner of the house. (Yes, yes, of course some of it was mine, but I preferred to think of the bottomless pile as Bruce’s fault.)

Sorting through it all has taught me a lesson — as if I hadn’t already learned it — that junk builds up in direct relation to how indecisive you are about tossing it out.

I don’t really need all those catalogs, especially the ones dated spring 2005. I don’t really need that candelabra, which has taken up space in the family room closet for more than 20 years. I don’t really need two closets full of clothes, two-thirds of which I have not worn in a decade, and all of it doubtless too small to fit me anyway.

Brucie, what lessons you have taught me.

One, of course, is that our best intentions sometimes get beyond us. How many times did you tell me you were going to clean out the garage? Paint the back of the house? Sort out the canned goods on six shelves in the kitchen? Many of which I have lately discovered had blown their tops or died of old age.

If I had not tuned into my own good intentions long ago, I probably would have been annoyed when Bruce didn’t live up to his.

But the fact is, I made as many promises to myself as Bruce made to me, and the years rolled by and the closets didn’t get culled, the front door didn’t get repainted and that shower door was never replaced.

Bruce’s absence — regretted for 100 reasons — has also become a reality check.

He may not have been perfect, but at long last I’m forced to confess that neither am I.