{"id":10077,"date":"2026-09-20T13:27:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T13:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/i-feel-like-im-cancelling-out-her-life-the-wrenching-work-of-clearing-out-a-parents-home\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T13:27:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T13:27:29","slug":"i-feel-like-im-cancelling-out-her-life-the-wrenching-work-of-clearing-out-a-parents-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/i-feel-like-im-cancelling-out-her-life-the-wrenching-work-of-clearing-out-a-parents-home\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I feel like I\u2019m cancelling out her life\u2019: the wrenching work of clearing out a parent\u2019s home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u2018My apartment has become a museum of family stuff and stories. Once, I couldn\u2019t bear to let the stuff go; now I feel suffocated by it.\u2019 Illustration: Victoria Hart<\/figcaption>
\u2018My apartment has become a museum of family stuff and stories. Once, I couldn\u2019t bear to let the stuff go; now I feel suffocated by it.\u2019 Illustration: Victoria Hart<\/figcaption>

From old love letters to pieces of string, our homes are stuffed with stuff. When it comes time to empty a parent\u2019s home, sorting the junk from the memory can be overwhelming<\/p>\n

Soon after her marriage in 1952, Ellen Rogers\u2019 mother, Fay, bought a coordinated bedroom ensemble \u2013 a floral dressing gown and matching bedspread. The day I talk on the phone with Rogers, she has made a tough decision \u2013 she is putting the gown and bedspread in a garbage bag to be sent off to a charity shop. \u201cI feel so bad,\u201d she says<\/p>\n

Fay died in May aged 97, and had lived in the same terrace house in Camperdown in inner Sydney her whole life. Rogers grew up in the house and returned three years ago to be a live-in carer for her mother. Now she\u2019s cleaning out the house so it can be sold. The decisions she must make are endless; which pile for what item \u2013 family, rubbish or charity? \u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming \u2013 there\u2019s so much,\u201d Rogers says, \u201cincluding every bloody card she ever received.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through winter, Rogers moved through the house alone, trying to focus on the task but not always succeeding. Her three brothers are elsewhere. \u201cIt\u2019s quite lonely and I hate this house because it\u2019s so cold. I just wish I could speed up the process but I can\u2019t. Some days I\u2019m right on to it, and then other days I just can\u2019t, because it\u2019s very emotional \u2013 and I\u2019m not really an emotional person.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in a similar situation. I know the emotion and loneliness of emptying a family home. After my father died<\/a> in 2010, my mother moved to a smaller place on the Queensland coast. The large family home in Toowoomba where I grew up remained \u2013 overflowing with my parents\u2019 household items, their collections (beer steins, fabric, books, Royal Doulton figurines), as well as every last item from my grandparents\u2019 home which arrived in a large removal truck when they came to live with us.<\/p>\n

\n<img src="https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026<\/a>\/09\/3000.jpg” alt=”Ellen Rogers stands facing a window in her mother\u2019s kitchen”>
Ellen Rogers in her mother\u2019s kitchen in inner-Sydney Camperdown. Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It took me 12 years to empty what came to feel like an emotional halfway house; I flew up from Sydney for a fortnight or more a couple of times a year. My mother was with me, but absent too, lost in memories and completely incapable of making decisions about anything. We argued over everything. We argued over a piece of string. \u201cThat\u2019s a perfectly good piece of string,\u201d she said one day of a fragment maybe 10cm long.<\/p>\n

I moved through the silent house feeling the ghosts of the family\u2019s past, the grief-filled shadows, the immense weight of possessions, of stuff<\/p>\n

But Rogers and I are not alone in the challenges we\u2019ve faced. The global population is ageing and members of the so-called \u201cSilent Generation\u201d \u2013 those born before 1945 \u2013 are now in their 80s and 90s and either moving into care or dying. (Deaths in Australia have risen by 20% over the past decade.) This is the generation that came of age during the increasingly affluent decades after the second world war. They bought stuff \u2013 lots of stuff. And now, emptying out their homes is becoming a rite of passage alongside weddings, anniversaries and funerals. (Are Australia\u2019s charity shops ready?)<\/p>\n

The four women I spoke to for this story (research suggests women are more likely than men to manage estate admin alone) use similar words to describe the grief-edged process: \u201cwrenching\u201d, \u201cgruelling\u201d, \u201coverwhelming\u201d. For others, especially in families riven with tensions and fractures, it can be explosive<\/p>\n

\n\"Family
Family photos in Fay\u2019s house. The exercise of emptying out a family home has come to reveal a generational gap in attitudes towards stuff. Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cGet a skip [bin], clean it out while your mother\u2019s not there,\u201d a close family member who made no contribution to the clean-uptold me. (I was enraged.) \u201cThrow it in a skip,\u201d people told Anne (she asked that only her first name be used) as she and her siblings started to clean out her mother\u2019s home in Sydney\u2019s southern suburbs in July<\/p>\n

Anne\u2019s feelings about the presence of a skip on a footpath are similar to mine. \u201cThe earth\u2019s too fragile\u201d to just toss things into landfill, she says. Among my many recycling triumphs, I found a charity to take a pile of old spectacles that emerged during my cleaning; Anne has organised for more than a hundred of her mother\u2019s X-rays to be recycled for their silver and PET plastic content. \u201cI would do that for every single item in the house if I could.\u201d But she has had to compromise with her sisters and allow some things to be discarded. \u201cThe stress for me is looking over my shoulder all the time and monitoring what\u2019s happening; my sisters are wonderful but they have a different approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

What end-of-life experts know about living well: love your wrinkles, celebrate birthdays and don\u2019t obsess over work
\nRead more<\/p>\n

Kathy, a former Sydney public servant who asked that I not use her real name, inherited her late mother\u2019s house after she died in 2024 and has been living in it while trying to clear it out. She has also found herself unable to simply toss things away. \u201cThe problem with getting rid of Mum\u2019s stuff is I look at it and think, \u2018I can\u2019t just throw it into a skip\u2019 \u2026 It\u2019s like, someone will want this.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thought she\u2019d found a home for her mother\u2019s extensive collection of vases when a friend said her Japanese floral arranging group was looking for big vases for a demonstration. \u201cHave I got big vases for you!\u201d Kathy told her. She pulled them out of a cupboard. Her friend looked at them. \u201cOh no, none of them are suitable,\u201d she said<\/p>\n

The women I interviewed have all had another concern: paying respect to possessions that carried layers of meaning for their parents. A house full of things is not a house but a memory machine; things are not things but layers of recollection of self<\/p>\n

Melbourne woman Adrienne lost her mother in 2022 (she asked that I only use her first name). But even before her death, she had already started to tackle her mother\u2019s house. \u201cI completed a \u2018Swedish death clean\u2019 at my mum\u2019s house over three stifling January days,\u201d Adrienne wrote in an email to me. Her motives were pure \u2013 to make things easier for her mother, who was expecting visitors to stay \u2013 but she regrets now her vigour.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe watched me, sat forlorn at her kitchen table, while I ruthlessly moved things on. I did not empathise with how much meaning might be attached to stuff I was basically calling worthless. I see now that objects can store all sorts of nostalgia including several versions of self \u2013 old interests and enthusiasms, even unrealised aspirations. I store the picture of her sitting at the kitchen table and can see her grief during the process. I wonder if she was also reflecting on her eventual end as well?\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother also bore witness to the moving on of things invested with meaning. Like Adrienne, I was ruthlessly efficient through the process, driven by a wild rage at the staggering physical and emotional scale of the job left to me, the absence of my sibling, and my mother\u2019s shifts between pigheadedness and shilly-shallying. But an image of Mum sitting at her kitchen table, looking lost, remains with me too. As is something she said as we went through a pile of Dad\u2019s old clothes: she remembered, she said, the feeling of his dinner-suit jacket brushing her arm as they walked down the aisle on their wedding day.<\/p>\n

But a parent present in spirit only can still exert a powerful psychic influence. Anne, as the oldest child, felt responsible for ensuring that her mother\u2019s possessions received \u201cdue acknowledgment\u201d as stitches in the fabric of her life. As Rogers builds piles in her late mother\u2019s Camperdown home, she is flushed with guilt. \u201cWell, I said to my brothers when I was getting cranky the other day in a group [chat] \u2026 I feel like I\u2019m cancelling out her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"Ellen
Ellen Rogers goes through a box of family photos: \u201cThis would have been at Australia St, a women\u2019s community group. Everyone would be dead and gone now in this photo.\u201d Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The women\u2019s stories reveal something else: the exercise of emptying out a family home has come to reveal a deep generational gap in attitudes towards stuff<\/em>. What\u2019s frequently described as \u201cbrown furniture\u201d, for example, holds no appeal for members of the Ikea generation. But frugal memories and habits, and a sometimes almost reverential respect for material possessions, were embedded in the Silent Generation\u2019s psyche. Frequently, a shiny new item signified status, a step forwards and upwards.<\/p>\n

My mother, born in 1936, reminds me frequently how little she had growing up. I heard the old lessons as we waged a battle over kitchen cupboards and linen closets. \u201cWhen sheets wore out, we\u2019d cut the sheet down the middle and sew the outer edges together to give it new life,\u201d Mum told me more than once. Soap, she said, was removed from its wrapping paper so it hardened and lasted longer<\/p>\n

Kathy has also found that her mother\u2019s lessons are sticky. \u201cThere are still things in the kitchen that she used before she was married in 1967, and the good wedding china does not have a broken or chipped plate amongst it; everything she had is in good condition because we didn\u2019t grow up with much money.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thought clearing out her mother\u2019s things so she and her partner could make the house their own would be straightforward. \u201cIt just isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"Ellen
One of Rogers\u2019 nephews wanted her mother\u2019s Charles and Diana tea caddy and a couple of her grandkids took some figurines, but her brothers seem not to want anything. Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kathy found that dealing with her late father\u2019s hoardings \u2013 old speciality books related to his profession and \u201ca garage full of things to fix stuff or build stuff\u201d \u2013 was simple. But in the kitchen, she came to a screeching halt over casserole dishes<\/p>\n

\u201cI unpacked them on to the bench, and I just thought, \u2018right, which of these will I keep?\u2019 And then I just looked at them and thought, \u2018I can\u2019t,\u2019 \u2026 it was just like a whole shutter came down in my head,\u201d she says<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re so tied up with memory; I thought, \u2018I know what she used to put in each one, I know the difference between the one she made lemon delicious in and the one she made chocolate pudding in, the one that was always out at Christmas with the tomato casserole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Losing a parent is a bewildering, lonely experience. Here are the things I wish I had known before | Gaby Hinsliff
\nRead more<\/p>\n

For Rogers, the emotional trigger was discovering cards her father had written to her mother. \u201cHe passed away when I was six. I\u2019d never seen his handwriting. That gave me a little cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clean-up has made Anne realise that she places little store by possessions. \u201cI\u2019m not really interested in the jewellery or anything expensive, I just want the mementoes,\u201d she says<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Mum\u2019s knitting bag, for example, I found a bunch of letters that Dad sent to Mum and vice versa, when they were courting. I don\u2019t particularly [want to] read them but I fished those out \u2013 they\u2019re important and special.\u201d She has kept one of her mother\u2019s childhood books in which she found an inscription: \u201cmy favourite book \u2013 do not throw out\u201d<\/p>\n

I still have nightmares about the process of clearing out my family\u2019s Toowoomba home, fever dreams in which endless stuff<\/em> \u2013 books, bags, china, chairs, figurines, forks, photographs, paintings \u2013 hurtles towards me. But what madness is this \u2013 at the end of it, I took ownership of hundreds of items from the house \u2013 my great-grandmother\u2019s sideboard, hundreds of my father\u2019s books, my great-aunt\u2019s dinner service, my grandmother\u2019s old mixing bowl, my mother\u2019s 1950s cocktail shaker \u2026 and on, and on \u2026<\/p>\n

My apartment has become a museum of family stuff and stories. Once, I couldn\u2019t bear to let the stuff go; now I feel suffocated by it. I look around and feel panicky. My nieces and nephew are unlikely to be interested in anything I\u2019ve kept or the stories attached to them<\/p>\n

I think of Rogers: one of her nephews wanted her mother\u2019s Charles and Diana tea caddy and a couple of her grandkids took some figurines, but her brothers seem not to want anything. I think of Kathy, who says her brother and niece only took away a box or two<\/p>\n

And I think of an elderly relative who never married, did not have children. After he died, family members went to clean out his home. There was almost nothing left. The man had released them from the burden<\/p>\n

\n

\n Related:<\/strong>
\n
\n Digital Automation Training Benin: 5 Winning Skills Employers Demand in 2026
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n WhatsApp Marketing Automation Africa: 6 Dangerous Mistakes Brands Make in Nigeria
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Want to learn this practically?<\/h3>\n

Join Justfine Infotech<\/strong> and build real digital skills in AI, automation, web development<\/a>, digital marketing, office productivity, e-commerce, freelancing and cybersecurity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Available Programmes:<\/strong>
\n 6 Weeks Certificate \u2022 3 Months Professional Certificate \u2022 6 Months Diploma \u2022 Full Professional Diploma<\/p>\n

WhatsApp:<\/strong>
\n +229 01 57 57 99 15
\n +229 01 66 68 11 60<\/p>\n

Enroll Now<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: www.theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From old love letters to pieces of string, our homes are stuffed with stuff. When it comes time to empty a parent\u2019s home, sorting the junk from the memory can be overwhelming<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[1857,1856,884,1093,1858],"class_list":["post-10077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-remote-work-freelancing-digital-income","tag-cancelling","tag-feel","tag-life","tag-like","tag-wrenching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10082,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10077\/revisions\/10082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justfineinfotech.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}