It’s every parent’s DUTY to spare our children the most painful rite of passage of all

THERE were enough jumpers, nighties, coats, hats, tea towels, antiquated dressing gowns, worn pillowcases and useless ornaments to stock every charity shop in the country.

Downstairs yet more awaited me — cupboards full of chipped pots, pans, china; drawers bursting with old letters, bills, cards; bookcases stuffed with out-of-date encyclopedias; ‘glass’ cabinets groaning with ‘good’ crystal.

not forgetting the drawers stuffed with nothing but carefully folded paper bags.

I remember never feeling so desolate as when I flopped on the bed in the little bedroom of my late mother’s semi, contemplating the overwhelming task of sorting through and disposing of her possessions after her death.

It was probably one of the bleakest, most painful tasks I’d ever performed — and at a time when I was still feeling raw, numb and scarcely able to drag myself to the house each day.

The grief was unbearable as the memories kept flooding back; often accompanied by guilt, tears and sheer exhaustion. Should my mother have spared me that pain and inconvenience by decluttering before she died?

In a new book, author Margareta Magnusson argues that we all have a responsibility to do, what she calls, our ‘ death cleaning’ — a horrible phrase — in order to spare our children such heartache and inconvenience.

I, on the contrary, would hold that it’s every child’s duty to perform this last rite, however heart- wrenching. And I’m far from alone, judging by the postbag Femail received after featuring Margareta’s stance. Many wrote in echoing my own thoughts that painful though it is, it’s also, ultimately, a way of getting to know parents in a way you never would if they’d got rid of all the clues about their lives in advance.

It also performs the very important function of forcing the bereaved child to take time out — easing the ‘ passage’ into their new status — to move up a generation.

SO, the idea that this should in some way become an advance clearing out before death — however rational and desirable it may appear on the surface — is to my mind another form of denial. A way of pretending death doesn’t happen: a way of making death less of a disruption to our busy lives.

Yes, imagine having to leave your precious work or social media for a couple of days, or even a week, to consider the life of a parent . . . to contemplate what everything they left behind might have meant to them and in the process get rather emotional.

It’s one of life’s hardest lessons that pain sometimes helps us grow.

But for that, we remain the perennial adolescent.

of course we should talk about death with our parents (though I must admit it used to depress me enormously when my mother kept asking me which pearls I wanted).

I’ve asked my own children what they’d like most of my belongings. But we should not pressure older people to get rid of everything and almost disappear, as if their existence is in some way a nuisance. our ‘stuff’ after all, is us. It’s part of being human. Magnusson advises us to get rid of things that others will have no need of: ‘I often ask myself, will anyone I know be happier if I save this?’ she asks. But how can anyone assess the meaning or desirability of something to someone else? Particularly future generations.

People relate to all kinds of unexpected things — anything from hideous costume jewellery to chamber pots — and even the experts can’t predict why something becomes desirable.

one of my relatives asked for my father’s old smelly pipe after his death as a piece of memorabilia. Someo n e else wanted an old jam jar where my late husband had soaked his paintbrushes. So who can really decide exactly what will make anyone happy?

Meanings are not determined rationally. To try to make them fit a mould shows a lack of understanding of how things become more than just material objects but acquire symbolic value too.

By stripping away the archaeology of your life, I believe you deprive your children of the chance to get to know you in a way they never had a chance to in life. After all, we never knew our parents as young people: we rely on snippets of information, hints, anecdotes, and photos to find out more about their hopes, dreams, plans for the future before parenthood took hold. we often don’t really know them as people at all, only relating to them as mum and dad. we’ve taken them for granted in their older, care-worn incarnation. It takes a very long time to unravel the people they were, and what they leave behind is the clue. Every object, from an old china cup to a letter, tells a story if you take the time to notice — just as much as any treasured object in a museum. So why would we want them to get rid of this precious archive before we can explore it? Hazel latcham, 71, from Hullbridge, Essex, an only child, is comforted that the loft of her home is filled with her parents’ possessions as well as her own. ‘Dad was 66 when he died and always said: “You will have a lot of fun getting rid of Plea: Margareta in Mail my stuff,” and he was right. Thirty years on, we still go to boot sales with his tools and books. we end up talking about him to people we sell too and this keeps him alive to me.

‘like myself, he was a great hoarder and sorting through his things was not only cathartic but a great help in the grieving process.

‘My mother died a year ago aged 97 so I have also added her clutter to my father’s. I have her collection of teddies, her china and there’s much, much more to sort out.

‘Two out of three of my children are also hoarders so I won’t be decluttering any time soon.’

At 76, Jeanne goulding has begun the process of going through her own possessions, spurred on by what she describes as the ‘rather miserable’ process of clearing out her parents’ flat when they went into residential care.

But her lesson learnt is to be careful what to throw.

‘what you think is rubbish may not be to those left behind. when I sorted my mother’s possessions, the most precious thing I found was a torn piece of envelope on which she’d written: ‘Jeanne, I loved you so much.’

That meant the world to me as when she was alive we found it difficult to express our feelings for each other. This really was a message from beyond the grave.’

RECENTLY I came across a pile of old love letters at the back of the wardrobe. Tied in a ribbon, there were many from my late husband during our courtship and some from teenage sweethearts with faded pressed flowers and vows of eternal love.

who was this girl I was reading about? Even I had forgotten. would I want my children or grandchildren to know her? I decided I would.

granted, everyone has a skeleton in the closet. But the only people I can think of who might want letters and the like destroyed are those keeping some unholy and very dysfunctional secret, which has to be unhealthy anyway.

I think it’s more the fear of emotion that gives people the idea they must ruthlessly cull ‘clutter’. The fear that these objects might tie you to the past or even reveal something