Grief over dismantling my deceased elderly parents home

[Toolea]

My dear dad died 4 months ago, three years after my mum. They were together for 53 years and devoted to each other. Artists and writers, their little home was full of books, art and beautiful objects, collected over a lifetime together. I am their only child and miss them both very much.

Dad had been in great health but, after caring for my very unwell mum for 20+ years, when she died he just went downhill and I spent the last 2 years intensely caring for him until he died at the end of January this year. I am (recently) married with a daughter (20) and a stepdaughter (19) and it was so wonderful that dad got to see us married a few months before he died but his and my mum’s deaths have left a huge hole in me. Grief over my mum’s death has resurfaced with a vengeance alongside grieving for my dad. My feelings are understandable, I know, as we had such a tight little family just the 3 of us for so long and my mum, who I loved dearly, could be wonderful but also very controlling and got (completely understandably) increasingly angry and bitter as she became older and more and more unwell. Poor dad dealt with a lot with her so it was a privilege to look after him in his final 2 years although it’s left me exhausted and quite shaken, if I’m honest.

So, now, on top of bereavement I’m having to go through their home and decide what to keep, what to sell, what to give away, give to charity and what to chuck out. There is a garage full of stuff too. And, I’ve realised that selling their flat (which we moved to when I was 16) is probably the only way forward for me - both financially and emotionally. I can’t afford to keep paying the bills for the upkeep of the flat and, after looking into renting, realise that it’s not really financially sensible after all the expenses come off the monthly rent we could get. Selling will be a much needed financial lifeline for us as my husband and I are both self employed artists and due to the cost of living crisis, no one is commissioning or buying art any more. Mum and dad have left us such a gift and I feel so lucky but it’s a finite amount of money we’ll get from their tiny flat so I have to make sure I do the right thing with it. It needs to last us into our old age and help out our daughters, too.

But it’s making me so sad and low to pack up and sell. I feel like I’m losing my past and my parents all over again. In some ways, no longer having their home on my mind might be a huge relief. Maybe I will be able to move forward with less baggage - physically and emotionally.

Why am I writing this? I think I’d really like to hear from any others on here about similar experiences with dismantling their parents homes and selling a beloved house, in order to feel less alone with this. (And, on a practical level, if anyone has any good advice about selling vs renting and what to do with a modest lump sum of cash.) None of my friends, or my husband, have been through this so, although they’re all being very lovely, they can’t really understand. I’ve had a little bit of grief counselling which was helpful to a degree, but ultimately I felt like it was taking me even deeper into sadness every time I had a session.

I’m off up to their flat again today for another few hours of sorting and my heart breaks every time I walk through their door. I wish this was all done.

Thank you for reading ❤️

There is no way I could do that. In my parents' house there were gems, sentimentally speaking, among the rubbish.

I saw something on FB the other day and I thought what a great idea. It was a photo of family and stuck on the frame were pieces of costume jewellery that the person had worn. Another idea is to keep some pieces and frame them. I have no idea if your mother wore stuff like this but being arty maybe.

The way I dealt with this was that pieces from the home were given to charity shops to have new life breathed into them and to bring joy to someone else ( as well as charitable funds) . I kept one or two pieces but in later years passed them on too. Best of luck. It's not easy!

I agree with a pp - when MIL and FIL died, we went through their bungalow and picked up the photos and stuff like little trinkets/stuff from the wall that reminded us of them. I have a little thing of MIL's on the wall of the room I'm currently in. We deliberately went through it relatively quickly, made quick decisions and then got in house clearing people who paid us, rather than the other way around, because they sold stuff that was saleable. Including things like washing machine/tumble dryer which were in great condition, and other furniture. It was less painful this way, rather than revisiting their home over and over and it being weird without them in it.

Sorry OP this is hard.
My uncle was in 'charge' of sorting out my nanas place when she passed.
He took out the things that had been promised to people and gave them to the person. Then asked family to come one by one and pick anything they wanted as a keepsake or that they might want or need. Then he asked friends to come and do the same. Finally he asked neighbours. So that things werent wasted, thinks like a tea pot, scarves etc.
He then called house clearance company who took the rest.
I chose her records, a blanket, some photos and a trinket box.
I am a big one for charity shops too, I think if someone can make hse of an item then thats a good thing. Better to be used than sitting in my cupboard getting dusty.

@Sunnyday321 what a lovely post, this has made me tear up.

Thank you but sorry you teared up .

I'm very sorry for your loss, @Toolea. When I did this, I put quite a lot of effort into researching how to get my parents' possessions to 'good' places but without too much difficulty as I had to do it all on my own. So for example, I gave almost all of their books to a second-hand shop in a historic house they liked to visit and they came and fetched them, then sold them or sent the remainder to pulp to raise funds to maintain the house. I gave a lot away through Freecycle and only had one person on the make. Everyone else told me what they were going to do with the furniture, eg doing up their daughter's bedroom, fresh start after divorce and needing kitchen equipment, and I kept a list. Reading it at the end did make things easier. Taking photos of ornaments has been good (a few years later when I was ready to look). I kept a lot of nice small things that I could use and think of my family, like shoe cleaning brushes and furniture polish, and that's been lovely. I sold the house though I was emotionally very inclined to keep it, and I'm glad I did that. I have kept too many of my parents photo albums etc, and they kept a lot of their own parents things, so at some point I'm going to need to deal with that as no one below my generation is going to want most of it, but it's not easy!

I cleared my parents home five years ago. Like the op I too was an only child so it was left to me and my dh to sort it out. It was also my childhood home. We managed to get rid of most of the furniture as that had no sentimental value for me, but I did struggle with the books. The ornaments went to a friend who did car boots to supplement her income and we gave away lots of kitchen stuff to a girl who had moved in across the rd and was using freecycle to start her home. She also took a few pieces of furniture.
I kept all the jewellery dad had made mum and still wear some of it. I always wear her wedding ring.
like pp I took photos of the house too.
when the house was cleared and empty I thought I’d be very sad, but honestly I felt relief that I didn’t have the worry of it anymore. It was just a house and your memories go with you.

Oh your post has made my heart ache, I know just how you feel. My mum had kept so much - a million memories collected over a lifetime. I felt like she had put them there just for me, just so I could remember he wonderful life we had together - me, mum, dad and my (very detached) brother.

I took a very long time to sort it all out and sell the house - I had the luxury of not being in a hurry. It took me 9 months. I looked at every photo, every slide. My grandad’s stamp collection and the carefully labelled seeds in the greenhouse. The folders of our school reports, the newspaper clippings.

I kept a lot - especially everyday things I knew I could use and touch every day. Those being me immense pleasure. The enormous ceramic bowl in which we proved bread and hot cross buns, mixed the Christmas pudding or collected currants stripped off their sticky stalks.

It’s the those things I’m so happy I kept - you tend not to look at photos and memorabilia. But every time I use my mum’s best trowel and her roll of garden twine it’s like she is with me.

There have been some lovely, thoughtful posts on this thread so I am in danger of 'lowering the tone'.

My ex husband's second wife has much of the money that I inherited from my father. I advise you to consider protecting your money in some way.

It's a very good point

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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!

Thank you so much to everyone who replied to my original post.

I’m so moved by your generosity and honesty in sharing your experiences with me and I can hear how profoundly you’ve been affected by your own personal situations. Hearing your stories has really helped me and I know I will go back and read them when I’m feeling particularly lost in all this.

Yesterday at my parents flat was very emotional. Big tears. But cathartic too. And I was strengthened by all your words and felt more able to look at things, remember, and then say goodbye. Sorting out their memories from my memories is going to be a tricky one for me though as, like another person on this thread said, my parents weren’t good at that and my mum, especially, blurred those lines. Sometimes I’ve not been sure where they end and I begin. A bit of a zinger there to end this post on, I know.

Thank you again ❤️

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.

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.

@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

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.