(lightly edited, at Nola's direction)
We've been in Penticton for the last few days, going through Nola's parents' apartment and tying all the loose ends. Throwing stuff away. Sorting out stuff to go into storage. Baling stuff up for the dumpster. Selling stuff we don't need to people who can use it. Hauling bags to the trash. Locating the right charities for reusable stuff. Twelve large industrial-sized trash bags full, and this from a one-bedroom apartment.
Most of the larger furniture items sold, and to the same couple, as they're furnishing a basement suite for a parent to move in with them. They even bought the lift chair. For those of you who do not know what a lift chair is, think overstuffed recliner sent through a welding vortex along with a hospital bed. It needs a team of specialists to shift it from place to place, and has no proper home with a pair of able-bodied women. They retail for $1200 in Canada; I would hate to have to buy one in the US, if the relative prices for crutches are any indication.
Anyway, because of them our storage needs were cut by three-quarters at the least, and it'll be that much easier to eventually move the remainder back to Vancouver. That's what I keep telling myself. And the bedroom suite, and the little sleeper sofa, and the imitation Queen Anne chair that Nola's mom always sat in, and the lift chair, will go to help some folks take care of their own parent, and that's a Good Thing, and that's what I tell Nola, and she agrees, wholeheartedly: it is vitally important to both of us that what we do not keep is not discarded, but passed on. Even so, it was hard, especially hard for Nola, to watch people come in and handle things, speculate over an item's usefulness, make counteroffers (and the prices set so low to start) as though this were an ordinary garage sale, where dickering is part of the day.
I went through the linen closet today, to separate out the special things from ordinary towels and sheets. Things like lace runners, and fancy aprons, and embroidered pillow cases. Linen towelings, printed with calendars and idealised scenes from Robbie Burns' life, mixed with thick Bowron sheepies, meant to protect frail skin from body sores. And folded them all carefully and laid them in the brassbound trunk, along with good flannel bedsheets and knitted throws and Norm's army beret. And helped Nola prep his clothes and such for the thrift store, save for one beautiful charcoal sweater I insisted she keep by for herself.
We're ready to go home in the morning, with a car full of things we can't bear to leave behind, no matter what. Next week, or the week after, some guys with a truck and experience packing other people's lives will come by and box up what's left, and take it to a safe place. With them will go a vacuum cleaner, a TV, a pedestal coffee table, and the trunk of linen and lace. With us will go the coffee maker, some pictures, a few books, a View of Edmonton (with key ring hooks), and a box of ashes.
13 Comments
Ah, that is hard, dealing with the loved leftovers from departed parents! I’ve been through that and still have things I should be finding new homes for, but it seems that people don’t want flowery English china, crystal and silver etc etc any more. I don’t and my daughters don’t, sigh….
This is what I would say to your daughters, after this week: It is not a choice. You do not have the luxury of not deciding what to do with the English china, and the bric a brac, and the enscrolled silver, and the appalling little statuary of large-headed children being Sweet, and on and on and on. The stacks of photos of half-remembered (if you’re lucky) relatives, the craftsy things done by someone you may or may not be related to, all of it. TV trays. Lawn chairs. Rusty barbeques and broken ski poles and mountains of lace doilies. You will fucking have to deal with it, some day. You don’t get to just glom onto the nice bits, the things you like, you must make some decision regarding the rooms and cupboards and closets that are chock full and bursting with ordinary detritus.
Mom is not going to sell the family silver merely because her daughters don’t like the pattern. No, thankyouvermuch, Mom is going to keep using it (you are, right?) until she shuffles off this mortal coil, and guess what? It doesn’t go with her. You will, in the despair of your heart and the shocking denial of your taste, have to decide if it’s to be sold, or donated, or melted down, or stored in the event your own children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews, put up their hands and say, “Um, if it’s okay, we’d like that. It’s family stuff.”
If you have half a brain to share between you, you’ll spend some effort working out what you’re going to do with, not just Mom’s trust fund and CDs and invested mite, but also what you’re going to do with her clothes and her lawnmower and and her cat and her hearing aid. With all the thought Nola’s put into it over the last few years, she’s been barely able to keep her head above water. You girls go on as you have been, thinking all you have to say is, “no, thank you, I don’t want that,” you’ll be sunk.
Although, I’m so very lucky to have my parents still here with me, I have seen this very issue happen with my grandparents. My best wishes go out to you both as you finalize the details (don’t you just hate that word when referring to someone’s life possessions?).
Thanks, Tanya. We’ve pretty well got it under control, though seeing the wheelchair come back on Friday (wrong agency picked it up on Tuesday) just about sent us over the limit. I was all for torching it on the front lawn of the retirement centre and telling DVA it tripped, but wiser counsels prevailed. Damn them.
The tears spurted right out as I reached the end of your piece. Then I read your admonition to daughters and dried up in a hurry. Hugs to you both.
Then I read your admonition to daughters and dried up in a hurry.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad. :) But in case I’m being chastised here, what I should perhaps make plain is that it is difficult enough to deal with the loss of a parent all by itself; it’s even more so if the survivors suddenly realize that there’s still an entire houseful of things, ordinary things, things no one sees unless they’re needed, that the house elves aren’t going to whisk away in the night.
When the last occupant of a home dies, the survivors have not only a death in the family to deal with, they also have a major household move to plan. Anyone who sees this conjunction of events looming in her future should take some time to sketch out how she will want to handle it, if only to lessen the burden when the time comes.
I’m an only child, and after my mom died I was the one who had to take care of all the practical matters. When we had an estate sale to clear out some of her stuff, I was taken aback by the way that people not only didn’t behave any better than at an ordinary garage sale, some people seemed to behave even worse. What sticks in my mind are the two women who offered $40 for two coffee tables that I’d priced at $50 for the larger and $25 for the smaller. When I declined, they waited until they saw me leave on a lunch run, at which point they came back, lied to the friend who was covering for me while I was gone (“Oh, your friend said $40 was fine, we just had to go to the ATM to get it”), and scammed off with the tables.
The only real bright side of that sale was the real estate agent who happened to stop by, asked for a brief tour, and then contacted me a week later with a good offer for the house before the agent I was working with had even gotten it listed.
Best wishes to you and to Nola.
they waited until they saw me leave on a lunch run
I don’t know where people like that come from, but there do seem to be an awful lot of them, especially when one is least able to defend oneself against them. I’m glad your estate agent was one of the other kind of people, though.
Both of us appreciate your kind wishes. :)
Thank you to everyone who expressed their sympathies for my dad’s death. It’s a hard time to go through, and it really does help.
We were ambushed by the unexpectness of the emotional stress of dealing with my parents’ belongings. There are the Things We Take, and the Things We Put in Storage, and the Things We Dispose Of (by sale or donation), and the Things For the Dumpster. It quickly starts to seem impossible to dispose of anything, because what you are getting rid of is not a piece of furniture that you have no use for, but a piece of someone’s life. And how can you throw away your parent’s life? Yet it has to be done, no matter how gut-wrenching.
Surprising things turn out to be valuable. One of the items we brought home was a sturdy kitchen stool with an upholstered flip-up top and 2 steps built in. You can’t find anything like this any more, and for years people had been trying to buy it from my parents. It’s been around since my childhood; I have vivid memories of the family cat claiming it, a preferred perch but a slightly risky one as the cat was larger than the top and tended to fall off in a flurry of injured digity if he actually fell asleep on it. Old dishes and pots and pans are being kept too, though we’ve got lots of our own, because they were part of our family’s daily life and can’t be given up – not yet, anyway.
EmilyB, the whole situation of being family selling the belongings of someone who has died is complicated and strange. It’s emotionally wrenching, and I don’t think people realize just how much so till they’ve gone through it. So some of the dickering is simply thoughtless ignorance, a lack of recognition of how strongly emotions relating to family can be attached to physical items. You know that the people you’re dealing with are in pain, but that’s because they’ve lost a person, not property, right? And you’re actually helping them, taking things off their hands so they don’t have to pay to store it. So you can sympathize and still look for a deal. After all, bargaining is what you do at a yard sale, so why wouldn’t you do it in this situation?
At the same time, everyone knows that at an estate sale there is the potential for incredible deals: you might be able to get something you could never otherwise afford, because the heirs don’t have the knowledge or energy to price things accurately. I think that encourages people to want to get the best deal possible, and predisposes them to bargain, making it easier to be thoughtless about the emotional effects on those who are selling. In other words, it can set up a feeding frenzy in people who might be horrified if they knew how much distress it caused.
And there are, of course, also those like the ones you encountered, who are simply vultures looking to profit from someone else’s sorrow.
I’m glad we were able to sell things to people we knew a little, nice people who are using them to create and extend their own home. But I had to leave the actual selling to pericat – I went and hid in another room while it was going on.
No chastising intended. Far from it. But give the elders a break — it’s near impossible to list out what happens to all the bits and pieces. Frankly, the departing one(s) don’t care. Best you can hope for is some direction as to which special pieces go to which heir or friend. The rest is *stuff* and can be retained or not, depending how you feel about it. As in a moving sale (with which I have some painful experience) things will be disposed of for less than their worth, far less than their emotional value, and sometimes without your intending they be ‘lost’ at all. You did the best you could, and far better than many if not most have done. More hugs.
I used to have nightmares about having to deal with my parents household, but when the time came – Mum passed and Dad had to go to a Nursing home, my brother suddenly appeared (after being mostly absent for years and years) and took over. I don’t envy Nola having to do it so soon after her Dad’s passing. Almost more that could be beared. After the estate sale, we put loads of stuff in storage, my Dad needed to know it was there, and then when he passed it came to me – a huge truck load of stuff that took 4 hours to unload. Into my house no less. It was hard sending all that stuff on its way – it was all the things that my brother thought I would want. It took me years to deal with – one or two hours at a time in the beginning, the emotional cost was great. I still have a few things left to send on their way and that’s 5 years since Dad died. I am trying now to keep things (of my life) that I want, but not to keep anything that I do not love or need. I don’t want someone to have to wonder what to do with my stuff, or to be burdened with it.
Love to both of you.
Hi, my name is Dorsi. I was searching the net trying to get info on “Parents belongings”, and came across your entry. I am devastated today, I have my parents home to go through, my mom died last June (my dad the Oct. before) and the thought of going through 50 years of their life is belongings is overwhelming to me. I don’t even know where to start………
I have to rent their house out now, it’s time- so any advice you can give me would be so appreciated……….
Welcome, Dorsi. You have my deepest sympathies; both of your parents in the span of a few months is a hard blow, indeed.
I’m not sure that I have useful advice to give, but for what it’s worth:
1. This isn’t something you should try to handle alone. If you’ve siblings, or children or partner or close friend to call on, bring them in to help. Whether or not they can help, you will need a moving company to do the heavy lifting and hauling. So put sourcing one on your list of things to do.
2. As I’ve mentioned earlier, you will have to make a decision regarding *every* *single* *thing* in that house. You have to decide if you want to keep it for yourself, or if you want to keep it for passing on to a another family member, or if you want to give it away, or if it should be thrown away. So before you walk into the door, sit down somewhere comfortable and safe, with a pad of paper and a pencil, and think about every room in turn. What’s in it? Furniture, pictures on the walls, rugs, lamps, books, knick-knacks, etc. If you think you might not want it, but that a charity might, make a note to that effect. Same thing if you think the item is something you do want, or if it’s something you think a cousin or niece might care for someday. The more you can decide before you walk in the door, the better off you’ll be.
3. Call around to the charities in your area. Aside from the Red Cross and Sally Ann, there’s also homeless outreach, women’s shelters and the like. They all have specific needs and limited storage and so won’t just swoop in like magic fairies and whisk all away, more’s the pity, but you may be able to pass on a surprising amount to them. While you’re looking into charities, you should also find out where the local landfill is, its hours, and what the fees are for using it.
4. EmilyB said she worked with an estate agent, a bit upthread. In my experience, estate agents do take everything, and sell it, right down to the last bent salad fork. If you sift out all the possible heirlooms and keepsakes, you might want to consider letting an estate agent handle the rest. Your or your parents’ bank or lawyer may be able to advise you in more detail here, and, if it seems like a good idea, recommend an agent.
Lastly, don’t forget to take care of yourself. If you don’t want to sleep in the house while you’re working over its contents, don’t. Get a hotel room. Don’t skip meals, either; doing so will only serve to dull your thinking and make your task harder. And don’t spend longer than eight hours a day doing packing and sorting. (If you can’t bear to do more than four to six, that’s okay, too. The main thing is to not work till you drop.)