It is so final

[Dramajustfollowsme]

My fabulous mum died last September after a long, brave battle with cancer. She lived in our family home with my sister after my dad had died 9 years. It has taken a while to sort through all her things and get her estate wound up. Our family home has been sold and we exchange on Friday. We will have no physical connection with the town we grew up in.
When I walk from room to room, my parents are everywhere in the house. So many memories. Their bedroom still smells of a mixture of hairspray and mum's perfume. The doorframe where we were measured as we grew up. My sister is actually taking that piece of wood with her. We will of course replace it with a new piece. Even the rose bushes that my dad planted in the garden.
I'm just glad that we have a lovely flat for my sister. She hasn't stayed in the house since mum passed away, instead staying with us. She is much younger than me but we have always been extremely close and mum used to joke that I was like a second mummy!
I know it is going to be so hard when I lock that door for the final time. I've known all along that this day would come but it still seems quite shocking that it is actually happening.
Both my sister and I have lots of our parents bits and pieces dotted around our homes but we can't take our home with us.

Oh i have such sympathy for you.
Felt the very same when my nana died and we emptied and sold her house, our family home, where i had grown up, my mother had grown up, 3 generations in fact had lived in that house.
We had been happy and comfy and safe and laughed and cried. So so many happy memories.

Its in the same town where i now live. I actually cannot drive near it or past it. I go miles out of my way to avoid it. 12 years on, it breaks my heart.

Seriously, i want to march up to it, use my front door key...which i still have on my key ring, and tell the people in it to get out of my nanas house.

Have a huge hug, its fine to be sad, its massive is this

Thanks, my DH can't be with us on Friday so mum's best friend is going to hold our hands.

I could have written your post - almost word for word. It's uncanny the similarities between our situations.
I have to lock that door, walk up that drive and leave for the last time today. Even typing that sentence has made me brim with tears. I thought the hardest part was over - losing Mum out of the blue & 30 yrs too early, planning & going to her funeral and clearing her house. So why I'm absolutely dreading going up for the final time I don't know. My Dh is abroad and so I will be clutching my toddler trying not to cry. Since the tears are flowing already, this won't happen! I know I have kept what I can from the house and the things I haven't kept...well... I am trying to convince myself that I don't need things to remember her.
I really want to tell the new family to look after our family house, which of course I won't. I wish I didn't feel like I was leaving mum behind in the house. It's so damn hard isn't it?
The very best of luck with the exchange & all that goes with.

Time for cake, I did leave a card for the new family telling them it had always been a happy home and that I hoped that would continue for them. Shutting the door was awful. Almost as bad as letting go of her hand for the last time. My DH is trying very hard to not freak about the amount of stuff I've kept from the house. We asked all of mum's close friends to come and take an ornament to remember her by. That way we haven't kept as much.
Hope when you close the door things are not too painful for you. Remember that no matter where you are, your mum will be with you. The memories are in your heart.