Cleaning Out My Parents' House Taught Me What's Enough

After my parents' deaths, my sisters and I were left with 46 years of belongings to sift through in our childhood home. This wasn't a case of hoarding newspapers and the latest QVC purchases that you might see on a reality tv show. My parents' home was filled with objects from their life together.

As children of parents who lived through and experienced the harsh realities of The Great Depression, they were resourceful and careful with their spending. The "in good condition" things that were organized neatly in closets and in the basement and "might be used again."

Through the years, Mom and Dad did several "big declutters" and yet so much stuff remained. Sentimental and spare things, clothes from every decade since the 60s. If quizzed even later in life, Mom would remember when each outfit was purchased, how much she paid, and where she wore it. 

As they advanced into their late 70s, Mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and Dad ignored his health issues to navigate Mom's care. His health declined swiftly, and he died. Although Mom, several years into her cancer battle, got around well, clearing out Dad's things or excess belongings was too much for her to contemplate. We had to wait to do that job, but nightmares of this gargantuan task often woke me with thoughts of all their stuff teetering at the top of a landfill.

Mom died 13 months after Dad. Cleaning out their house after their deaths stirred up much emotion, sadness, happiness, nostalgia and an expected desire for a more minimalist life. Fortunately, my sisters and I were able to declutter the house over some time.

We (and various family members on occasion) met on weekends for months so we could go through each room and separate keepsakes, household staples, trash and donations. Days after, I experienced an emotional hangover, a feeling of melancholy that lingered.

We bagged up trash bags of good men's and women's clothes for donation. As we sorted, we hit upon the items that one or more than one of us could use or wanted. If one person wanted something for sentimental reasons, it went to them. If we couldn't decide, we set it aside and moved on. 

My middle sister scoured the internet and called many places to schedule pickups and drop-offs of clothes, exercise equipment, lamps and other house decor. We wanted them to be immediately used by people who needed them if possible. We connected with local organizations, like Green Drop and Habitat for Humanity, and a women's shelter in the neighboring city that said they would take household wares and place them in a home for families of domestic violence the following week.

Workers from an organization came with a truck and took what they could for their local store. One of the men said he had a friend who worked at a senior center that could use our billiard table despite its partially ripped green felt top. The friend came, disassembled the table, and picked it up along with the rack, balls and multiple pool sticks and stand.

Hours later he texted us several pictures of the men at the center playing their first game of pool. My heart was happy. Mom and Dad would love that other people were enjoying their useful things.  

We hosted a yard sale that was a ton of work and yielded minimal profit. But more items found new homes that day. Almost-new mattresses and upholstered furniture that could not be donated were set upon the curb on trash night and picked up even before the trash truck came in the morning.

I toted home photo albums and some jewelry, little things with memories attached to them like Dad's wind chimes that jingled on the porch for years. Each of my sons slipped some of my mother's seashells from Sanibel Island into their pockets. I saved several book series that Dad read along with his grandchildren. My niece transported some of their furniture to her house and my sisters and I took some as well.  

More than anything, I took away a sense of enough. As I sorted through their belongings I thought: how much is enough? What is useful in my daily life? Who might benefit from the items I no longer need? I curbed my shopping habit because I didn't want my children to someday stand before my stuff and decide: throw away, give away or donate? I stopped taking free giveaway items and recycled paper bags and envelopes. I enrolled in online billing and cleaned out my filing cabinets of paid bill receipts.

Before each purchase I try to recall the "Big Clean Out" and stop to consider if what I am about to buy will enhance my life. The process is constant. I organize what I have and sort seasonally or monthly, as the flow of things seems ever present. If I bring something in, I recycle or let something else go.

This has made an impression on my sons who were teenagers at the time of their grandparents' deaths. As their grandmother faded from cancer my sons saw that there was not one thing she wanted — just her health and her inner circle of loved ones nearby. Mostly, they focus more on experiences than material things.

I feel good about our efforts to distribute the objects from our parents' home and know that we have blessed others who were in need. However, many items could have been dealt with along the way so the chore after their deaths would not have been so difficult.

In addition to sorting my belongings, decluttering each room of my home, and thinning my files and setting up automated billing, I have:

• Reached out to a lawyer and created a will and health care directive, and other important documents about my future wishes
• Considered if I had possessions I wanted given to specific individuals. (A list can be written up with instructions if applicable.)
• Discussed my wishes with my adult children and told them where the important paperwork and other items are that they might need upon my death
• Established my beneficiaries on life insurance and other necessary accounts
• Streamlined previous employer retirement accounts, credit card accounts and bank accounts. (This can be a complicated maze that executors must wander through.)
• Shredded (more than 7 years old) tax documents, credit card statements, bill invoices and bank statements.
• Culled memorabilia and started to organize photographs (originals) and computer documentation of digital images
• Begun helping my adult sons go through their childhood belongings left at my house and encouraging a healthy let-go attitude
• Strive to create less waste and recycle/upcycle and donate things I no longer use

For me, the coffee mug Mom used regularly or Dad's wind chimes are the real treasures along with the memories of family vacations and talks while sipping tea and sharing cookies at their kitchen table. I hope to give my children similar recollections of our time together and release them from the burden of too much stuff.

Lisa B. Samalonis is a writer and editor based in New Jersey. She writes about health, parenting, books and personal finance. Read More