Selling the family home

[Arbesque]

My mother died last year. My father was already dead so we've had to sell the family home.
We've just agreed a sale and I feel like I'm in the early stages of grief again. I just can't believe the house we all grew up in and that holds so many memories will soon belong to someone else.
I can't stop crying and am waking up in the morning with a terribly sad feeling.

Has anyone else felt like this and how did you cope?

I'm so sorry for your losses. I had to sell my parents home, the only house they ever lived in, where I was born and grew up, when my parents died very close to each other. It was another thing to grieve, and felt like erasing my parents lives in a way as I'd never go back to that town once the house was gone.
But it was wonderful to sell it to a new family who wanted to make it a vibrant family home again, and I knew my parents would have loved to see that. The house that had really got dejected through their old age I was able to think about being a happy place again.

Thank you. I've started reminding myself that it's been a place of loneliness for the past few years. First my mother being left there without her husband of over fifty years, then being so ill there herself and in and out of hospital all the time, then the house without either of them and the sadness of clearing it out.
A young couple have bought it and I know it's time to move on. The house we grew up in is really a place of memory now and that is the home that will always belong to us.

I wouldn't think of the negative things of recent years, but all the good ones. And then, as you have moved on yourself to another house, it is time for another young family to make their own memories.
But it is awful having to pack up the house, go through all the furniture and belongings. My cousin just sold her family home and is going through boxes of things. She found a wonderful photo of my parents (both dead) wedding which I'd never seen before, and I'm sure she's discovering many other treasures.

Just done this last month. I did a last visit, took photos, swam in the nostalgia for an afternoon, cried a bit, got a couple of things to take to my current home to remind me of my childhood home. Took my kids there so I could bore them by showing them my old room, where we climbed the tree, etc. And now trying not to think about it too much.

The thought of the house being a home to a new family is quite nice, though. I had a really happy childhood there, but the last decade for the house was a bit bleak. When I grew up there, I knew all of the families in the street - their names, their jobs, ages, news. I was friends with all the kids. I'd been in most of the houses and slept over. But when I went back to visit, I didn't recognise any of the neighbours at all and no one knew me. Felt so odd.

I’m going through this just now too. Family home is in Ireland and I’m in UK. It always been my base to go ‘home’. Dad died last year and mum five years before. I’ve been staying there every couple of months sorting stuff with my sisters since dad died. I’m going back this week to basically stay while while the house is still ‘home’. Then back again at the end of the month for the final clear out. I know that will be hard. Dreading it.

I’m not feeling quite as bad as you but I know I’ll feel awful when we do the final clear out. It’s so unsettling to feel I have nowhere to go when I go back.

Hi

Thanks. I'm planning to take all the good memories with me but realise the house is no longer our home and hasn't been for a while. It needs a new chapter and a new family.

Went through this last year, did the same as a PP took loads of photos, videos and let the kids run around the house with no furniture, we as a family were very upset but glad that a new family were moving in.
12 months have gone by and although it's when driving pass (although you cant see the house directly thankfully) the memories come flooding back but it doesn't upset me like I expected it to