I was wiped out upon my return home Saturday night. Drove up Friday morn (2 hrs drive each way) to my Parents (who both passed in 2022-Dad in Jan, Mom, day after Christmas)..
Arrived at 1230PM. My 7th time solo at the house. Needs to be this way for now.. Sister and others will help end of next month.
Operation Book Donation was top priority. I loaded up 15 boxes of legal/banker boxes & into my car to drop the Sat morn to the library.. Then went back inside to work until 530. 530PM, I drove down the road (with a SUV full of books) to stay at good friends. They took me out to dinner.. Felt so supported. I slept rather poorly thinking on the next day. I kept taking deep breaths, trying to calm my mind...slow down my heart rate. Sat morn drove down the road to the local library at 845 AM. They take book donations every last Sat morn 9-1030 of every month. It was a beautiful experience with Seniors volunteering there. Unloaded all, chatted with a few. Drove back to my Parents reloaded the 15 legal boxes into my car (takes time to go thru each book-clearing out notes & recipes, tongue depressors for bookmarks) & back to drop for a 2nd time...
Then I returned to their home & worked roughly 1030-530..
Worked in various spaces. Cleared my Mom's walk in closet shelves, full of receipts, and greeting cards and clothes and dozens of empty Shalimar Guerlain Paris perfume bottles ...Why?? Hoarder in every cabinet-drawer-closet..surface, but not the Hoarder type you see on tv, where you can't walk into a room.. just behind every door.. all kinds of everything.. unnecessary.. Cleared out small chests of drawers jam packed of everything.
Took a break Sat afternoon & drove down the street...5 mins from where my good friends live, to her Mom's house (British "Edith").. Had lunch with my friend and Edith, looking outside at the pool that looks out onto the most gorgeous Ocean view ever....stayed from 1230-2..
To give a little context, it's an ocean view Southern CA community. My Parents lived in the tree section, as my Dad had to be able to commute down the hill to Hospitals...My Mom could never understand why people lived near the Ocean or enjoyed water views anyway...
Edith is amazing. Her Daughter my good friend, had such the diff upbringing. Healthy. Her Mom hugged me and said she knew what I had gone thru all the decades and was so sorry. She teared up...
Back to the house from 2-530 and drove the 2 hrs back home..
I know I am making strides, but I can hear my Mom screaming with every Contractor trash bag I create for donation or trash...
I want to move future forward. Will I always feel bound to the negative past? My Mom was a decade long Alcoholic, with Mania, then Borderline and Early Onset her last year after my Dad past. I do feel the purging of their house is very sad & hard work, but same time cleansing... Any books to recommend to me?
*PS If your house is full of clutter, pls allow your grown kids to help you purge. Start with books to your local library! Go drawer by drawer. Make it easier on them. I don't have an end date in sight. I see it taking many more days/wks/mos at the house to be to the finish line. 85% of what is there...is being trashed or donated..
All of this is nothing but a burden to our kids. They already have their OWN stuff and their kids have THEIR stuff. It feels great to lighten everything. I mean who really would think that they would want to have to read my diaries of our trips to Europe when they already had to listen about it once, already had to suffer through the pictures, ha ha. Make it easy on the kids I say. They will love you for it. I have already given them any heirlooms and told them to haul to goodwill if they don't wish to keep them. It's a kindness, really. Glad to hear from you and know you are still plowing on through.
There's absolutely no reason for you to do this.
My Mom was not a hoarder but the product of the 30s. A lot of saved stuff was "just in case someone needs it". She did start cleaning out, a little, before she came to live with me. The Attic mostly. When she went into care I did cleaning out when I felt like it. Gave alot to thecThrift shop. My GF got her baking dishes. Another friend came over and saw her kitchen chairs andvsaid if I got rid of them she would buy them. Gave them to her right then. I had it cleared out pretty well before her death. My brother just needed to pick up his stuff. I did not get sentimental. I just cleaned out. It took a cousin, only child, 5 yrs to clean her Moms house out because she just couldn't part with her stuff. My other cousin who was helping her said my Aunt had 30 pairs of shoes.
Like physical things, choose the memories to keep and ones to trash (or tuck away in the back, back recesses of your mind): Dad in his working days, Mom before the last decade, SoCal trees and sometime ocean views.
Build new memories with your support circle, tap into your spiritual life. There is a promise of a future when "the former things will not be called to mind, nor will they come up into the heart" - not even our memories will hurt us.
Until then, wishing you every peace of mind as you tackle this necessary task.
Swap out something at your own house and replace it with something of your parents. I swapped out desk and sofa table lamps. Now I have wonderful old lamps that have a special meaning.
From Mom's kitchen, I kept the small china bowls she used for candy, etc. and I now use those to hold paper clips, and donated what I was using before. Kept some of the daily silverware.
My Dad and his father use to make simple furniture as a hobby. So now I am using those items.
Hope this helps.
Yes, as hard as this is...I do think it is helping me work thru emotions. Makes me sad how she felt so much of everything was worth holding onto She would've made for a great historian or archivist.. ;-)
I know she loved us...but her mental issues were so taxing.. the loved was so buried under it all....
You are making huge strides! It is a lot of work cleaning out a house, even if the mom isn't the next best thing to a hoarder.
Don't listen to your mom screaming as you throw things away. Maybe instead she understands that is needs to be done and that you are doing it in a caring and respectful fashion.
It will take time to feel less negatively about the past. You are likely still grieving. Your mind will sort through the issues with your mom and you'll slowly but surely come to terms with it. I agree that cleaning out the house will help you even though it is painstaking tedious work.
After cleaning out my parents attic and upstairs, etc. for them to move in with us 7 years ago, I vowed to NOT do that to my kids. So far I have done a REALLY lousy job at it, but now that dad is gone and mom is in assisted living I am starting to poke away at getting rid of things. I still have to go through all my parents stuff that is now in my house. And my adult kids still have stuff here. It's gotta go and will make it easier to clear out and organize my stuff. It's a process, no doubt.
Good luck with the continuing cleaning out.