Working in senior wellness management and end-of-life care, one of the most stressful occurrences I see regularly is when grown adult children have to upend their lives to clear out the family home when a parent enters a nursing facility or passes away.
The burden of clearing out the family home filled with decades of paperwork, knickknacks, clothing, boxes(the list is endless) is often so overwhelming that companies exist to come in and just clear it all out with feverish abandon. This means an enormous dumpster and donation companies to just take items they think they can resell. The rest often just gets tossed in the dumpster.
This can be a burden to families and loved ones on several fronts.
If the family that is responsible for the home’s re-sale or evacuation due to mortgage payments or rental fees lives out of state or town, that person will need to take off work, travel and leave their own responsibilities and families. Depending on how many possessions remain in the home, this could be a very tedious and time consuming process and take weeks or longer.
If there are difficult family dynamics and no instructions or wishes are left behind, this can cause contention, arguments, rifts and legal battles within families over items in a time when grieving is taking place. Fond memories of a loved one are replaced with resentment and stress. This happens more often than people imagine.
The financial burden of clearing out items, cleaning, paying the bills on the home while this process takes place may not be in their budget and can be quite costly in addition to losing out on income and being responsible for emergency travel expenses if they are from out of town.
Emotional and mental burdens of the grief and guilt of dealing with a disease progression or placement into a nursing care facility or even funeral arrangements that were not preplanned can be compacted by the overwhelm of what to do with a home full of items you do not know what to do with. You may even feel guilt throwing most things away because they belonged to your loved one, and they loved those things. Maybe you end up keeping many things and putting them in storage, adding to the financial burden as well as adding to your own “things” that you will never end up getting around to going through again, leaving it to the next person...in perpetuity.
So, how does one mitigate this? Swedish Death Cleaning, is a lifestyle and ongoing process to continually prepare your home and life for your loved ones to not have to be burdened by the possessions you keep, after you are gone.
A TIME for “things”.
Hobbies come and go. The accumulation of items for old hobbies sometimes can be extensive. Hobbies also generally don’t last forever. We go full steam and it is fun for a time, then often fizzles out. We box them up in case we want to get back to it one day. Perhaps allow the next hobby to come aboard and let another person enjoy your collection to your hobby. The same applies to sports or recreation items, clothing, cups and Tupperware.
Once they become used, worn out, broken or outdated, why store it in your space any longer? It’s time to donate it, sell it, or toss it. It’s out with the old, in with the new.
A PLACE for “things”.
When a new mattress arrives, the old one is taken away. The same goes for a dryer, a refrigerator, a couch. So why then do we tend to keep paperwork, clothing, kitchen tools or cups, random items in drawers, nick knacks, or glass jars?
A NEED for “things”.
Do we use something everyday? Is it a necessity? Maybe we keep it “in case we need it one day” like spare screws for a shelf we put together. Maybe the new couch came with 11 throw pillows but really, how many do you NEED? Do you need paper copies of all your water and electric bills when you can just get them on your digital account at any time. Let the company keep your records, don’t make your family go through mounds of paperwork to make sure there isn’t anything important in the piles.
A WANT or LOVE for “things”.
Does it “bring you joy” as Marie Kondo said. Do you love seeing it in your home, do you love touching it? Does that artwork on the wall you received for an anniversary gift remind you of a trip you took with your late husband and brings a smile and warm feeling in your heart? Then KEEP IT! Do the hundred postcards you gathered over the years from your parents adventures make you laugh? Put them in a basket on the end table to fidget through until you have them memorized or grow tired of them, but not tucked away in a box. No one will want them when you are gone. They have no meaning to others.
Swedish Death Cleaning is a thought process in addition to actually clearing out and organizing your life’s possessions. We can help navigate this to prepare at ANY age, not just after retirement. It’s only overwhelming when you have to do it all at once.
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