Grief over dismantling my deceased elderly parents home

Sorry for the loss of your parents

I have been through this as an only child

My parents also had many Items that belonged to other relatives

I recommend;

Taking photos

Remind yourself that you cannot keep everything physical item

Items to keep yourself

Items to give to charity

Items to give to family or friends

Items to sell at auction, online, car boot

Items for rubbish

Items to keep while you decide what to do with them

Get 3 valuations on the property, clear, clean ready to sell

Suggest
Look at Tools For a Mission for Items that they can reuse
Garden tools
DIY
Sewing machines & items
Old glasses
Old stamps
Material

Good luck

around five years before my mum died I developed very severe mental illness rooted in childhood trauma. I lost my whole life and even my sense of being my identity. I advent been able to go back to the house - not fro the usual reasons - but becasue I cant bear to see photographs or memories of the old me and who I was before. I feel like I died.

aw thats lovelyy. my mum was a nurse too x

One thing that comforts me is that I was once with my dad in a charity shop when he found something that he was very excited and delighted to have found. That item was still on display on a shelf and it always reminds me of the day he discovered it and how excited he was.

I like to think that maybe some of the things now being donated will give other people the same joy they once gave my parents.

I found it hugely difficult to clear my parents house and seeing their things for sale in the charity shop made my heart miss a beat. I took lots of photos of items that were given to charity. Very nice to keep smooch although I've hardly looked at them I know they are there.

Toolea, so sorry that you are in the thick of these bereavements right now. And the same to everyone else in this situation as well. Wishing you all the best.

I can relate to much of what you’ve said about your experiences growing up. I think that close and complex relationships can only make bereavements just as complex to process, so the feelings that this clearing and sorting out are bringing up for you are not off piste at all.

We’re all just thinking out loud on here and so thank you for the thread because your experience it has helped me to think about this area too. X

I am sorry for your losses, OP. 💐

It's hard to leave a place of such familiarity and happiness. I agree with a PP who advised taking some nice photos of the house and garden; I did this; they are quite sad photos (my children were very young when my parents died and one of the photos is a lovely little wooden swing they had hung in a tree for our children). I did not grow up there but my great aunt and uncle lived there before my mum and dad so I had known the house since I was a young child. My parents did not get to see their 4 grandchildren grow up but I will always be grateful they they got to meet them and died knowing that we had our own families to focus on.

We rented my parents house for about a year then decided to sell it. Invested the money from the house sale into our own homes. My mums advise was to 'pay of your mortgages, have nice things and nice holidays.' So we did that.

It is a tough thing to do but it is the last thing that you must do for them. Live your life in their honour and always keep in the forefront of your mind that they want you and your family to be happy. This thought still helps me now, 15 years on.

OP your post is very moving.
I recently watched the series ‘Swedish Death Cleaning’. They helped a young man that had moved the entire contents of his parents’ home into his basement as he didn’t think he could/should part with any of them.
Might be helpful to watch. I think you might need friends to help you. I agree with previous posters that say deal with the easiest stuff first.

Sorry !

Hugs OP. That’s very understandable that this is extremely challenging trying to sort the material things out when it sounds like your parents have intentionally or not, perhaps made everything of theirs feel as though it should be emotionally significant to you. Because it was emotionally significant to them. Perhaps we’re also talking about large numbers of artworks they have made themselves, which you now need to decide what to do with, which adds an extra layer of complexity? That is kind of the absolute ultimate example of trying to find the line between what was important to them vs what is now important to me.

You probably don’t need us to say that the attitude of parents who model to their families that eg every possession or creative product of theirs is precious, ultimately isn’t a very healthy one. None of that helps you to have developed your own sense of your preferences, your likes and dislikes in life in general, which a a serious disbenefit to you. It makes decision making much harder for you and it leads to you expect your own boundaries to be less important than other people’s. Ultimately it’s not good emotional safeguarding. This is not helpful for you working in a creative profession either because you need to have confidence and conviction in whatever your own vision is.

But your parents loved you deeply and because of that ultimately they would want you to recognise your own vision and style as being very distinct to theirs. Your work, your taste, your eye. You are not ‘from the studio of’ them. You’re your own separate person. And as much as you want to honour their creative vision, it’s right and proper for you to recognise that their life is distinct to your own. Then logically it then follows that not all (or any) parts of their archive or household possessions will be precious to you and need keeping by you unless they have positive associations for you. And the same consideration goes for everyone else that you or any of us will in turn pass our things on to. I’m not saying just get a skip or have a random bonfire, some things of your parents can go to charity and help others etc. if there’s a market for them it’s also OK to sell some pieces and make money for your own future and family security. Give a few pieces to a public gallery or library if your parents were big names professionally or they have things from peers who are. Give their papers to a public archive, if your parents’ writing or art is going to be researched by students in future and then someone else will catalogue the papers and keep them perfectly preserved. That’s being very respectful of what they made.

Your respect for them doesn’t have to be you making a personal museum of their things to the detriment of your own life though, even if they weren’t public enough with their art so that you can get a public body to take on some of it. Do not end up the sole keeper of someone else’s creative flame unless you absolutely love it. You first and foremost need to support and love yourself here. You have a private relationship with them as your parents, as well (only if you really want!) taking on a professional custodian type one to their work. The latter requires a lot of practical and emotional resources, time, money that you might not have available.

I understand the feelings you mention of not knowing where the boundaries are between you as three people, you as the child, especially while in the depths of grief. That’s a very natural feeling to feel, part of the processing.

But I hope that you can can gather some support to do this current task of flat clearing if it’s not possible for you to base yourself there for a while and do it all quite slowly. I would recommend finding some more talking therapy especially if you do need to do it mostly alone. Best of luck, this is such a hard thing to do especially if you’re trying to take on multiple roles at the same time here. You’re allowed to be a bereaved adult child first though, not a professional conservator for two archives though. My apologies if I have misread your situation. I’m sorry for your loss.

It's tough. We cleared out dh's childhood home after his parents died.

His sister wanted to do the "take what we want and get house clearance for the rest" approach but dh couldn't.

He had to look at and touch and hold every single thing. He drove me crazy with how long it was taking him, but it was his grief and he needed to do that.

After a few difficult months of our house being full of boxes he was much more able to look again and give things away to charity shops and even take things to the dump.

I'm not sure that's much help to you, but I guess I want to say it's okay if it takes you a while. Everything is raw and emotions are running high and it's hard. Sometimes a bit of time, if you're able to store things out of the way, makes it so much easier.

We have something of theirs in most rooms of our house. Practical things in the kitchen, a quirky mug that we keep pens in, a plant in a pot, a little painting of a place they loved at the top of the stairs. Just small random things that catch your eye now and again and make you smile and think of them.

Best wishes op, it's a hard job.

@Sunnyday321 "All the happy memories of a childhood knowing it's only known by me now as those that shared it are now gone."

This made me cry

I am going through this but my DM hasn't past yet. She is in a care home and has to sell to pay for fees. She has dementia so I have to decide what to keep or not. The really hard thing is that I don't have the room to keep anything if I wanted to.

I wanted to add - while being an only child might seem like this is a burden you have to bear alone, it does have advantages too, in that you can make quick decisions about things.
My brother (joint executor) made life very difficult after my dad died. He lived 400 miles away, only came for the funeral, didn’t help with the house cleaning and sale but kept blocking any decision to sell stuff, saying they were ‘important family heirlooms’ (they weren’t - just old furniture etc). However nor would he actually TAKE any of the stuff he wanted saved - he apparently didn’t have room in my parents’ other house he had lived in for 20 years and inherited on my dad’s death.
It was very stressful and upsetting at an already very stressful time.

It is an awful mammoth task but I found that as I was a my lowest point doing it, I kept telling myself I can't possibly get anymore upset and just forced myself to carry on.

Keep what gives you happy memories or things with a happy story. Keep what you can't quite decide on just now. Everything else, sell, give away, donate or bin depending on what it is.

E.g I donated all my MIL's midwifery paraphernalia and case notes etc to the National Nursing Archive (can't remember the proper name and this was clearly several decades before GDPR!). We had boxes of the stuff, it was like an episode of Call The Midwife on the kitchen table sorting through it all!

I found a load of letters that my Dad had written to my Mum when they were courting. I didn’t read them and didn’t want anyone else to read them so they went in the grave with my Mum’s ashes.

I am an only child. My parents married in 1961 and bought a plot of land and had a bungalow built for them then. No one else has ever lived in it (well except me) Mum died in December 2023, an awful death with vascular dementia. Dad died in April. I have just started this process. It’s brutal. And I feel very emotional about the actual building & garden.

I kept a few platters and dinner plates from my mum and from my grandparents. We use them every night. It’s a lovely mish mash of different (but old fashioned) designs. Some wedgewood, royal dolton, and some cheaper stuff. I love it. I also have one of mum’s aprons, and a pair of her reading glasses. The rest went.

I decided to just take some things that would be precious to me, but also that I would use daily, and not be too bothered if it got broken or cracked. None of this ‘keep for special occasions’ business. After all, it’s just stuff.

My mum was killed in a car accident at 69. My dad had already died aged 54. Within three months I had buried her, and cleared and emptied and sold the family home of over fifty years. I did it on auto pilot but she wasn’t a hoarder so although emotional, was practically not too onerous.
Otoh, we emptied PIL house last year and thew sixty years of hoarded crap into several skips and kept next to nothing. It took four of us all summer. MIL is in a care home and never once said sorry for the state of it, or thankyou.
Both were tough in different ways but thank god will never have to do it ever again.

I don't have any wise words as I'm going through this now and feel utterly broken. I was there this weekend and coping okay until I suddenly found a very short note my dad had left me in a box. Spent the days since dissolving into tears at random throughout the day.

It's so hard. I wish I could go back in time. My parents were quite young so I don't have any friends who understand either. It's lonely and I miss my family.

I hope your trip up there today has gone okay and hasn't been too painful.

It's so hard and emotional having to dismantle our beloved parents' home. I don't think there's a right way or wrong way to do it, you just have to approach it in your own way which feels right to you. I feel for you - it's hard.

I kept my mother's jewellery, a few bits of my grandmothers which were always at home and the main things I love and value are from their garden. Two garden benches where we all used to sit in their beautiful cottage garden - g and t's and beers being enjoyed. I see them from my kitchen window every day - such happy memories. Likewise my grandmother's beautiful stone urn on a plinth and another stone plinth - so happy to have them in my own garden. They were valued by my mum and now by me. Their main legacy - love - they're often talked about fondly and I love it when my daughter shares her memories of her granny, who looked after her when I was working.

We rented out their house for quite a few years before it was sold. I honestly wouldn't recommend it. It stops you moving on emotionally and it's an onerous tie. Once the house was finally sold - one sibling was still resisting this, but was outnumbered - I passed on my share of the proceeds to enable my daughter and son-in-law to have a decent deposit on their house. Mum's mantra was that money was a tool to be used wisely, so I've always tried to live by that. Good luck OP, how fortunate you are to have had such lovely, artistic and sensitive parents.

oh gosh memories flooding back reading this. It is so hard. I remember packing up all the papers letters etc and dealing with those further down the line when I was stronger.
Clothes etc I gave away to charity almost immediately aside from a few scarves of my mums.
My advice it to take pictures of the house as you remember it.
Wishing you well in your journey. Xx

every time I use my mum’s best trowel and her roll of garden twine it’s like she is with me

This is so true. I kept my Mum's 'when things stop working' box with glue, fuses, spare batteries etc and it had been my grandpa's before that. They were both a lot more practical than me and I love the feeling of them keeping me organised.