Feelings about items from deceased

[cdcdguy]

My parents are down sizing so I have been given quite a few things. Some furniture they have had for many years, a picture my father painted, ect. These things just remind me of them. They are still with us, and I would think I will appreciate these items more when they are gone. But I can certainly see how sometimes an item may make you feel sad. Some stay in a home after one has past, while others sell the home.

How do you all feel about this?

[thinkalot]

Not one item from my parents makes me feel sad. I use some daily, some are on shelves and seen every time I walk by.
only good thoughts with those.

I thought selling their home might bother me. By the time I had it empty and a few things replaced it wasn't their home any longer, just an empty house.

I know I kept more things than I have now. After awhile I got rid of some things. The things I kept are useful or have a special meaning.

I heard a person say, and I now agree with is "the things you think are so important will end up in the garbage after you die." That's true. Maybe a old set of china, some not all of the pictures, and maybe some things they bought on their travels are keepers. Most things are now just someone else's stuff.

[Tuna Meowt]

I have good memories of the items I have from my grandparents. They only amount to a few books and a couple shoeboxfuls of photos, but that's all I have to remember them by. Some of the photos date back to the 1920s, back when my grandparents were just a young couple starting their family.

The only negative feelings I have about items from my grandparents is how some of my cousins acted when my grandmother finally died. After Granny's funeral, we all gathered at my aunt's & uncle's spread across the road, and we were just snacking and socializing (I lived several hundred miles away and didn't get back much to see my aunts, uncles and *20* first cousins ).

So while we were all talking and sharing memories, my favorite aunt came to me and said "if there are any little knickknacks you'd like to have from Granny's house, you better skedaddle over there and get 'em." So I walked across the field, across the road and up the hill . . . to find two of my cousins with a U-Haul, removing furniture.

I was staying in Granny's house for a couple of nights, so my things were already there. I stuffed a few books and photos into my carry-on bag, pointed out my stuff and told my cousins not to freakin' touch any of my gear.

Then I went back across the road and I haven't spoken to those cousins in the last 15+ years.

[tamiznluv]

I enjoy all the "stuff" I have of my grandparents, parents and husband. It's all I have left to remind myself I once had a family. My house is overflowing as are the sheds but I'll never get rid of what I "salvaged" because it brings me comfort and "grounds" me to stay living.

Whenever a relative of my husband died, his sister and cousins would just wipe out that relative's home and we just got some things they wouldn't "lower" themselves to take. Like an old wooden stepstool I took that Uncle Ralph had made.

[luzianne]

None of the things make me sad. I have two pictures that were on my parents' walls, and I put them on my walls. I have my dad's exercise bike and I use it. He would like that. I have the milk pitcher that sat on my grandparents' table at breakfast every morning when my dad was growing up. I have my grandmother's hand "beater" that she used to make mashed potatoes. It's not one of those hand rotary beaters. It is a wooden-handled utensil with an oval wire configuration of what looks like chicken wire. She refused to get a "modern" rotary beater. I have a hand made rustic-looking wooden table that was in my parents' dining room. And a folding table a friend made for them. And a little one-drawer table that was in our living room for as long as I can remember. A pitcher that they used for gravy that I have dried flowers from their funerals in. I have a board from the house that my great grandparents and grandmother lived in. Not sure when the house was built, but it was before 1910. It is still there, but falling down, and I took one of the boards before it completely falls apart. I have the jeans, shirt and suspenders that were the last clothes my dad was wearing before he was admitted to the hospital when he died. I have his wallet with everything still in it. I have my mom's purse with everything still in it. I have a small magnifying glass that has a leather cover which doubles as a handle when you open it up. I use that all the time and keep it in my desk drawer. Lots of other things around the house that were theirs. I think they would be pleased that I have so many things that belonged to them that are a part of my daily life. There are other things that my siblings asked for and I let them have whatever they asked for (I was the one who lived near my parents so I was the one dealing with them and their stuff) and I took what I wanted from what was left.

It didn't bother me to sell their house. I would go there and "talk" to them when we were getting it ready to sell. It really seemed like they were still there.

[eidas]

I feel sad because there is nothing of my parents (father deceased, mother 94) that my sibling/I want. Due to their frugality, they have nothing we consider of value; saddest is we care so little of retaining their memory & will just put everything in the Goodwill or a dumpster.

[CArizona]

I have an old, old blanket on my bed that belonged to my parents. I feel lucky that I still have it...It makes me happy. And it reminds me of my childhood...I've been wearing my husband's sweatshirt jacket lately. Or my older son's jean jacket. Makes me feel close to them!

[Marcy1210]

I know from going through my parents and dh's parents things that photos meant nothing to us unless we recognized the people or places in them, so they got tossed. On the other hand, there were a lot of things that were familiar and had warm memories, but over the years, we slowly realized that most of their things didn't mean as much to us as it had right after they died, and we slowly weeded out a lot of lamps, knick-knacks, worn furniture, and wall art, only keeping that which we truly treasured.

I'm sure when I die, most of my stuff will mean nothing to my kids as they've already gotten a lot of our family stuff when I sold the house in CO and downsized to the condo here in AZ. The chairs, wall decorations, knick-knacks and other things I have now are cherished things that bring warm memories to me, but will probably mean nothing to the kids. I suspect 90% of my stuff will be Goodwill or the landfill.

[Slithytoves]

I cherish the few items I have from my grandmother, but they do make me a little sad if I actively think about them. My grandmother died after a 5-month illness, and the daughter (my aunt) whose home she moved into for hospice care decided that her family deserved first pick of my grandmother's belongings when she passed. My grandmother, a country lady, had no will because she didn't feel she really owned anything of value, and foolishly trusted that her three daughters would divide her possessions fairly. Not so. Before my grandmother passed, my aunt's family began covertly removing just about everything from her house. My mother and other aunt didn't care so much about the belongings, but the idea of it all became the source of a lasting rift that destroyed a sisterhood.

As for my mementos, I had been staying with my grandmother in the earlier stages of her illness, and one day she asked me if there was anything I wanted to keep from her house. I asked for four things: a few of the prickly, inexpensive hair curlers she was wearing each morning when I spent the night as a kid, a chipped dime-store tea cup she insisted on using so her guests would never get the "bad" one, one of the cheap, patterned plates she always served me my favorite dinners on as a child, and a bottle of "Save the Baby", a mysterious liquid she insisted on rubbing all over me for whatever ailed me (to no effect). When she died, I quietly asked the mortician for her worn, unfashionable eyeglasses before her casket was sealed. I fancied myself an artist and wanted to try seeing the world through my grandmother's eyes.

What I have are the things that together are a physical record of my memories of her. Unfortunately they also remind me of the trouble even a poor woman's few possessions can cause.

[Ulysses61]

Grief is an individual thing. There's no "right answer" for the equation of death.

Some people will take 10 rooms in their house to hoard items from a deceased loved one and that's OK. Others will immediately dispose of everything from someone they loved who has passed on, and that's OK too.

We all mourn and suffer in our own ways.