Clearing mum’s house & finding it hard to let go - does anyone have any words of wisdom?

[Nocellara]

I lost my mum last year - almost a year ago! I am only just starting to clear her home and am finding it really hard to let go of her things.

I have very limited space so can’t really hold on to very much, but even the everyday mundane stuff seems hard to get rid of. I know I am not being rational, but would be interested in how other people dealt with clearing their loved ones’ homes after a bereavement.

My partner is very supportive and has helped a lot, but we have been through this process very recently when his dad died and we are sad, exhausted and feeling the strain.

Anyone want to share their experience, and how they made their peace with this part of the process?

I don't really have any words of wisdom, as I seem to mostly muddle through stuff!

My mum died suddenly in June, and I had to clear her flat in 2 weeks. Unfortunately I had to do it alone as my sister is abroad and unable to return due to Covid. I managed to get it down to a few boxes of stuff we could go through together when she can get back, and these have gone onto storage. Everything else was cleared by a man with a van for a couple of hundred pounds. It took a lot of sorting of nearly 80 years worth of memories.

I won't lie, it was incredibly difficult, I did a lot of it through a blur of tears, but in some ways I think having to do it alone, and having a deadline helped, otherwise I would have drawn it out a lot longer. It was very hard to see her stuff there, just as she had left it a week before with her glasses and phone on the arm of the sofa and a biscuit next to a half drunk cup of tea...it was agony to lock the door for the last time...but the page was turned, however painful it was to do it.

for you, I don't think there is an easy way, so be kind to yourself.

I have cleared two close friend's houses. The first one was a year after she died abd it was much easier to let stuff go - I actually have only kept one thing of hers (others kept more but nobody too much).

The second one we cleared my friends house about 4-6 weeks after she died. It was far more traumatic and I have boxes of things of hers stuffed all over the house. It's on my list to go through it all again as I think I will be able to let more go now.

I know that isn't comparable to cheating your DM's house - but I do wonder if you could take the approach of keeping and storing a larger amount if things now and then sorting through again in a few years when things are less raw?

Clearing your mums house not cheating!

Sorry for your loss - it is so hard I remember bawling over my dads coat, it was awful, hideous even but it was his and just so him that it really got to me. Anyway my advice is this - like a normal clear out where you have one box for charity shop, one to keep and one to bin but instead of one to keep have 2 - one to keep forever (things you know you definitely won't ever part with) and one to keep for now/not sure. If you have to you can put the ones you're not sure about in storage for a while until you're ready to go through them again. I now have a smallish box of my dads things containing stuff like the tie he wore to my wedding, a watch, some old photos and a few momentoes of his army days and things like that. Good luck

Would it make you feel any better to list things on freebie websites or local Facebook groups? When I was getting married I got lots of crockery, glasses etc from house clearances and the people said it made them feel better to know that the belongings would be loved.

I'm sorry for your loss OP, it has been 12 years since my parents passed away, and I still have things that need to go.
It isn't easy but some of the things it's easier if you know they are going to a good home.
If you have time this is what helped me.

Charity shop, the things that had no value, by this i mean financial or sentimental.

Skip/bin.
Broken things, stuff I didn't like, no sentimental value.

Old collectables/ antiques/ specialised equip, ebay, even sentimental stuff if it wasn't to my taste.

Keep anything that is to your taste and sentimental.

I also think it helps if you categorise like above/ similar and any money raised buy something to remember her by. I gave my dc the money on the strict instructions they had to buy something they would keep/ for their house.

Thanks for the replies everyone, it does help to hear how other people managed.

Bupkis - your phrase turn the page really resonates with me. I do think we need to turn the page too, and look forward - we have spent so much time & energy on dealing with our parent’s estates - as well as of course the emotion and grief endured during their illness and after we lost them.

I would definitely store some things if I could make room - we are trying to do just that at the moment by having a clear out, with the result we have created chaos at home too.. Really need to get tougher about clearing stuff out!

We have had to rent storage, as we have no room... it hasn't worked out too expensive.

It must be hard for those with little storage and it's probably the only reason I'd say pay for it, but short term.
I am finally getting rid of the sentimental stuff that's too big.
2 very old vintage slide projectors large screen, cameras and accessories.
It helps me to think of it as baggage now, but I'm a long way in front of you OP.
Keep what you are undecided about, display what you love. Then one day you'll come back to it again and decide something isn't worth keeping anymore.
I can't tell you the amount of times I've done this over the years.

It stopped being painful after a while and the stuff was stored in the loft and forgotten about.
It's hard atm because it's much harder to dispose of things due to covid, so you have no hurry.
Beg and borrow a cupboard here or there from friends and relatives if you can.

My mum died in May. We’re slowly clearing her house (not easy right now as charities etc are reluctant to collect donations). The further we get, the less like her home it looks and the less weird it feels. I too won’t be able to keep everything. I’ve focussed on small items, re-homing a few larger things with people I know will care about them, and trying to do things in a way that has meaning. Could you perhaps photograph the items you can’t keep but would like to remember?

I have found taking photos of everything before getting rid a good compromise

My heart's with you, OP. My DF died suddenly just before lockdown and since my sister and I don't live locally, we've only been able to get back to start sorting the house to get it ready to sell. Our DPs lived here for 50+ years, and we grew up here, so it's like saying good bye to both parents AND our childhood. We're sorting through our own junk as well as theirs. It's a lot. It's like being in a really bad book.

My approach has been to clear out all the obvious detritus - newspapers, old shoes, toiletries - and create keep/sell/donate divisions for the rest. I keep reminding myself that if I dropped dead tomorrow, would I be devastated if my family gave all my paperbacks to charity? Or shredded my letters? Or gave away that dress I bought in the M&S sale but didn't exactly love. Not really. Ultimately it's just stuff that did its job.

The hard part is what to do with items connected to my DF/DM's passions - my DF spent hours and hours and hours and hours tinkering with his vintage car, but neither of us can drive it, and it has to go to someone who'll love it like he did. Ditto my mum's collection of pottery pigs - she loved them, I don't. We both feel bad about selling things they treasured but you don't necessarily inherit the same taste in stuff, any more than my DM's vast collection of size 5 shoes is any use to me.

In all seriousness, I wish undertakers/crematoria would do 'funerals' for things that feel too personal to shred or throw on a skip, like old love letters or job offers or correspondence that obviously meant something to the person who kept it. I feel as if it needs a formal acknowledgement before you let it go.

Thanks again everyone for your replies and thoughts. Some good ideas re different piles for keep/sell/donate etc & you have all helped me to remember that many of these things I am struggling to let go off are not really meaningful - I am just making them so because they are a tie to mum. Every time I struggle to let go of something I am trying to say to myself isn’t it great that mum got so much pleasure from having that ‘insert random thing’ rather than worrying about discarding something she loved (not sure if I’ve articulated that clearly, but trying to focus on the positive I suppose). I am also thinking about my DS too, and am mindful that anything I hang on to he will have to trawl through one day too, so that’s another incentive to be discriminating.

to each and every one of you.

So sorry for your loss.

This article by Janice Turner might be helpful to you- she's describing clearing out her parents' home. It's very moving.

www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20190927/281968904414193

ThaGugaBlasta I love your idea of funerals for things.

I have thought a few times how much easier it would be if we still buried possessions like the Egyptians / burned them like Vikings, and sent them on with our loved ones to the next life, although I suppose even then we would need to be selective.

Every time I struggle to let go of something I am trying to say to myself isn’t it great that mum got so much pleasure from having that ‘insert random thing’ rather than worrying about discarding something she loved

This really resonates with me! I try to transpose it in my head: I think of something similar of mine, and ask myself how I'd feel and then hold on to that 'it doesn't matter' feeling. But it's hard. One day I could briskly sweep a whole shelf of old toiletries into a bag, the next I'd burst into tears over a bag of throat sweets by my DF's bed because they were such a sharp reminder of his physical presence.

That Janice Turner article is very moving, and describes this whole process beautifully. Thanks for the link, Sunhorse.

So sorry for your loss. It's so difficult letting go. When clearing out a family members home I kept some very random items. One was some tiles from the kitchen. I've framed one and plan to craft the others into coasters. Really odd to some people but I had such happy memories in her kitchen and seeing the pattern takes me back.
Also if there are lots of clothes you find difficult to give away you could make them into a teddy or patchwork quilt/cushion. It wont take up a lot of room but could mean a lot to you or your DC.
I also made an imprint of the front door key in some clay and made it into a christmas tree decoration. That way I've something to remember them by everytime we decorate the tree.
The home contained so many memories and was a gathering place for our whole family, it was more than just grieving the family member but grieving that time in our lives being gone. The house was like an extra family member if that makes sense

Sorry for your loss, OP.
I read a book called Swedish Death Cleaning. The key message is that we don't need many physical objects to remember a person by - as demonstrated by some of the ideas above.
My DH is struggling with the sheer volume of "nice" things his mother had: China, glass, silver, many ornaments.... Trouble is, she believed they were all 'worth a fortune'. DH catalogued everything, photographed everything, its all carefully packed in dozens (yes, dozens) of really useful boxes. He has contacted auctioneers and specialist dealers. Usual comment? 'It's pretty, but there's no market for it now'. I can see it pains him to donate it to charity, and he has a huge list of things he seems to want to keep (our house is already full). I keep reminding him that, in giving pleasure to his mother, it has already served its purpose in life.

I agree, OP, it's hard.

we've cleared a lot of stuff after a bereavement and some has gone to charity but we have also done a lot of carbon sales and still have a couple more to do, it means things are going to a good home and we also take money and we are going to have a set of teddy bears made with shirts.

We've picked out the things we want to keep and then the rest has been put to one side to be sold. rather than the piles it was easy to choose what we really loved