I think you being able to identify that material stuff doesn’t matter shows that you are in a very secure, healthy place in your own life. Lucky person! :0)

I think about anyone cleaning up after I pass in connection with years worth of journals. I can’t bear to get rid of my past. Someday I may want to read them. But I can’t imagine what I’m saddling someone with after I die.

To a stranger, they’re junk. But to my husband, they could be a treasure trove. Or a minefield.

Good luck with your mass cleaning.

Yes, this will be hard for all of you. But I have no doubt you’ll make it as easy on your mom as possible.

It will be an interesting process to see what things you (and she) decide are meaningful enough for your mom to take into her assisted living unit. It’s going to be like a master class in understanding stuff and its importance to us.

It’s always so darn complicated, isn’t it?

I actually saw someone do that a few years ago. It was an online tag sale and swap, so people could get rid of their unwanted dog stuff and maybe grab a deal on things they wanted to try. It was quite successful, if I recall.

My mother is moving into assisted living on May 1, and obviously has to get rid of about 90% of her possessions. She has memory issues, and repeatedly asks me (and my siblings) if we want this or that item– usually something old and ugly and high-maintenance, like silver servers that we’d have to polish.

It distresses her terribly when her kids say no, because as an immigrant who came to Canada in 1935, these objects have meaning to her as having “arrived” in Canadian society, no longer the poor Polish peasant she was born. As a child who grew up in the Depression, she has the “never throw anything away” mentality, because even if cost a dollar, you worked for that dollar, and throwing something away meant throwing that money in the garbage. She would gladly sell the stuff we won’t take, but second-hand stores see no value in it, and she refuses to to give it away to charity, because she still thinks it DOES have value. She’s coming up to a very difficult time in her life, and I see heartbreak ahead.

This is true. I cannot imagine what my crew would do to Honey’s Lamby. It wouldn’t be pretty. 🙂

Jan and I need to start a support group.

I second that.