Nothing helps you understand who your mum and dad really were better than sorting through their possessions after they’ve gone
Two weeks ago we carried an article arguing it was a parent’s duty to clear their home before they die. Mail readers had a very different view
you were trying to hide. As for me, I would want my children to know me in my halcyon days: when I had mindless fun, took endless risks and went on adventures I’ve long since left behind.
I wouldn’t edit that girl out. I’d leave her to be discovered. Thankfully I have a conservationist son who will probably want to examine every scrap of paper left behind. And an artist daughter who loves poring over books and paintings. Perhaps we’re not a typical family . . . So I will leave my letters, my box of assorted dancing shoes, my old bikinis, my old fancy dress outfits, my feather boas and bits of nonsense.
I will leave my hats, the embroideries I started and never finished, my old school reports, travel diaries dating back 50 or more years and anything else that tells my tale. My family might want to hear it one day, not only to better understand me but themselves too. After all, apples don’t fall far from the tree.
Another approach is to clear some of the clutter — together — before it’s too late.
That is what Jackie Lawrence’s mother Joyce wanted to do when she was told in September 2007 that she only had 12 weeks to live. ‘We left the hospital both not knowing what to say. “I need some black bin bags,” was the first sentence Mum uttered. She wanted to go back to her flat in Stevenage and go through all her things.
‘That evening, and into the night, we looked through old bills, laughing at how little she had paid for furniture. We shredded old tax returns, old insurance policies. When her health deteriorated, she moved in with us and my husband went to her flat, returning with the contents of her home in boxes.
‘Before she died, she sat upright in bed telling tales of where each possession was from. She would tell us if it was to be thrown away, given to charity or kept. We laughed, cried and I learnt things I hadn’t known in 50 years.
‘The time we spent sharing her memories helped me to cope with the loss of a special person. Ten years on, I still smile when I look at the treasures we kept, knowing the full story as to why each item took pride of place in her home — and her heart,’ says Jackie, now 61.
WE all have conversations we wish we’d had but never did, things we wish we’d asked about but never dared. I hadn’t seen much of my father growing up during and after the war, but finding passionate love letters he’d written as a soldier to my mother gave a whole new understanding of the young man he’d been.
Reading a reference to ‘ La Cumparsita’, one of the records my parents had loved to dance to, I dug it out and had a listen. Yes, I shed a tear but my life was all the richer for it.
So much do I prize my parents’ memorabilia, I bought a special cabinet in which to house it all. From time to time I get out an old postcard or my mother’s ration book — or even use some of the old china — and feel connected in a way I couldn’t possibly experience if I’d never been allowed to find these objects.
I’m particularly fond of a card my mother sent to me from Torremolinos on one of her holidays. It was of a flamenco dancer dressed in red frilly satin skirt. ‘Thought you’d like this’ it said . . . certainly not sophisticated, some may have thrown it away . . . but I love it and keep looking at it.
As I danced flamenco for years and my mother before me had danced the tango in a red dress, this little relic tells much about our bond. And I’m all for telling those stories — not editing them out.