I recently traveled to Colorado for a therapeutic riding conference and also got to spend a little time with my sister. We found ourselves reflecting on how wonderfully pared down my mother kept her household, right up until the end. Mom was by nature relentlessly tidy, but even tidy people can accumulate boxes of old clothes, vases, garden tools, or books.
Not my folks. They lived in the same Pennsylvania college town for more than thirty years, and managed to keep that house free of junk. When it came time to move west, Mom took very little from the PA house to the CA house. This has puzzled me, in that both Mom and Dad lived through the Depression. They were entitled to hoard or at least hang on to anything still functional, and yet, their households were always on the lean side.
No attics full of old pictures or half-busted furniture, no chests of defunct clothing, smooshed hats, or mildewed boots. Whatever it is that keeps the junk haulers in business, Mom and Dad didn’t have it around.
As I’ve pondered this tendency to not collect stuff, I suspect part of the equation is that my parents never fell prey to the, “consume your way to happiness” pathology. The average urban resident sees 1600 marketing images daily, every one of those images screaming that if you’ll just buy this device, moisturizer, home gym, weighted blanket, life coaching course, or pair of shoes, you will finally be OK, or less not-OK than you are right now.
Maybe Mom and Dad were basically OK enough to see the flaw in that message, or maybe they were inoculated early in life with the “waste not. want not” philosophy. They never had a clutter problem, and I believe this was an area of accord in the marriage. 
When they died at the ages of 92 (Mom) and 97 (Dad, eighteen months after Mom), they left very little in the way of things behind. I have the captain’s rocking chair that was given to Dad when he retired, and one of Mom’s Vera Bradley purses.
One of my brothers has the lathe-turned open barley twist candlesticks my grandfather made for my mom. A sister has the photographs, a niece has Mom’s recipes. Another niece has Mom’s silver. We all have the love.
I would like to leave my daughter a tidy, lean house to sell (or keep) upon my death. I’d like her to have her grandfather’s rocking chair, some scrapbooks, a nice nest egg of literary royalties, and lots and lots of my love.
How are you doing with the balance between possessions and meaning. What stuff of yours will have meaning when you’re gone?
I’m not doing as well as I would like, though I am improving. Since I grew up in a family with 5 children on an Air Force Sergeant’s salary, I admit was a bit envious when my friends got fancier gifts, including cars when they were teenagers. So I did overindulge myself when I had my own money. Now, however, as I’m staring at the last quarter of my life, I have learned to think more deeply before I buy something new. So I am accumulating less and trying to declutter what I already have. Unfortunately, 1 live with a pack-rat (I think of myself as a pack-mouse), and I would always rather be reading than doing adult stuff, so progress is pretty slow.
As for meaning, I don’t think I have anything that others might especially want. And I have no children to leave anything to anyway. I am instead trying to enjoy what I have more while I am still here and not worrying about what will happen to it when I am gone.
I do think that my parents longevity had something to do with their victory over clutter and junk. Earlier in life, Mom was more of a clothes horse, Dad had garage more full of tools. They survived long enough to prune off a lot of possessions (mostly by donating and giving away), but ten or twenty years earlier, their household would have been quite so lean. Still lean, but not “death cleaning” lean.
That is a tough question. Mom also kept possessions down and was known to toss out all kinds of things, like our school papers, artwork, etc. Clearing out my inlaws’ house was hellacious for my husband. He swears he’ll never accumulate so much stuff himself. Well, he’s working on paring it down. As for me? I figure our son is not really interested in most of our stuff, so he’ll keep what he wants and to heck with the rest. In one way, that’s too bad. In another way, that’s the only way to go forward.
I wonder what we’re losing though, as our photo albums become digital, our fashion disposable, our art rented… I love Dad’s rocking chair because I can still see him in it. I love knowing my niece has Mom’s recipes written in Mom’s hand. Somewhere between paring down and disappearing is a legacy I want my daughter to have.
Oh Grace, leaving a lean house is an aspiration but not a likelihood. I am an only child, my parents left a lot of nice stuff. I have collected baskets, quilts, pictures, books especially of gardens and
art exhibits. They all mean a lot to me. My 2 kids have full houses and different tastes. I have started to let go of some things but I am attached and I like living surrounded by my stuff. I think responsible disposal is my obligation but I keep sitting down and reading or trying a new recipe or going out to lunch with a friend. I procrastinate. I have read many books on this topic and tried various suggestions – none of which has born much fruit because I really don’t want to let go. I don’t want it to be hellacious for my kids so this sword does hang over my head.
Your parents were indeed remarkable! We’ve had some international moves over the years, and I treated each as an opportunity to lighten the load. Unfortunately, my husband collects everything from concert programmes to coffee receipts to books. He cannot come home empty-handed and has the greatest of difficulty letting go. We are clearly opposite personalities when it comes to possessions, yet here we are still married after 38 years. (We did come awfully close to a breakup after I threw out the computer printouts from his PhD research.)
Hi Grace
The problem with my possessions and getting rid of them is that most of it was inherited. So my house is full of my childhood, as is my brother’s and sisters in law’s. And it’s all old, and I mean really old, as in 2,3,4 centuries. My sons have fully furnished places and no need or real desire for my stuff.
I feel a responsibility for these things, and yet I know the need to leave less for a future clean up. I can’t bring myself to sell, my grandsons will not be old enough to want anything for a long time.
It’s a problem.
I had been doing great on my minimalism journey until I became disabled. Suddenly I need a lot of stuff! Which I hate- there a wheelchair and a rollator clogging up the entryway. A leg elevation pillow and a hand- free Kindle stand with remote control device at the sofa. There’s boxes of stacked medications in the closet. All the stuff makes me feel as if I have have hives- I viscerally dislike it.
My mother, now 97, was well on her way to living in 2 rooms with only the bare necessities until one of my sisters moved in. The only item the family will fight over is the shower head in one of the bathrooms.
I have a few items the kids might want. They currently have nowhere to put them and might never. The piano (spinet) that was my mother’s engagement gift has sentimental value but neither one of the kids play much. Even small pianos are heavy.
You can hire people to clean out your house, apartment, room. Second hand dealers/auction houses will give you a flat price on contents sometimes. I have cleaned out a few estate houses myself where my husband was executor, the deceased having had no able-bodied relatives or too many.
I could go on a real rant here, and my husband on more of one. He isn’t the least sentimental and deals people upset over estates on a daily basis. We have managed to talk his parents into getting their paperwork in order. His dad scanned all the photo albums (you can hire this out sometimes) booted one copy to the cloud and gave each kid CDs and thumb drives. We all expect to be haunted by mother-in-law when we give her fabric and yarn stashes away.
I zig-zag back and forth: buying books and LOTS of fabric, but I live in a small one-bedroom apartment so when I run out of room, I give them away to my library used-book store and to quilting friends. It’s hard to resist the lure of the new.
This subject is a very relevant for my current situation. I am determined to leave a minimalist household to my daughters. That said I confess that I have been a collector of “possibly useful stuff” for a long time. In my work the budget never covered our needs for giving great opportunities to kids (occupational therapy in public school) so I was constantly storing all manner of stuff that I would turn into games, projects or just silliness. It cut my personal costs way down and we had a lot of fun, not to mention no reactivity to breakage or loss.
Until I retired!! Now it is all in my house taking up an astonishing amount of space. Just looking at the piles is overwhelming. Add to that a couple of debilitating diagnosis’s and I am looking for help (not so easy to come by). “Just throw it all out” is beyond me… the answer is – somewhere out there … tune in next week LOL
I am envious of you all. I’m the only child of a hoarder & a father who put up with it. It took 4 1/2 years of my life to clear my parents’ house, the 17×30’ shed stored to the rafters, & what was hauled to the assisted living place at the end. Not only Depression babies, but Mom was the 14th child in a 2 room Appalachian shack up a holler, so she lived in fear of not having enough to her dying day.
Nor was all the pile hers. She inherited a 6 bedroom house full of antiques from an elder sister & Dad inherited the contents of an elderly cousin’s 3 bedroom 2 story + finished basement house. Somehow all that got crammed into a 2 bedroom house!
I am only now getting my own house pruned down to the space & order I always craved. One of my greatest joys was hauling 8 bags of clothes over to a friend who recently lost down to the size above mine & didn’t have the income for a new wardrobe. She’s got one now & I won’t have things too big for me languishing in the back of my closets.
The hardest part for me was learning the things I didn’t in earlier years. That I didn’t have to stockpile like a crazed prepper. A couple of backups will be more than enough once I’ve used up the shelves of soap, etc. What a joy to finally buy new towels in colors I get to pick, rather than piles of hand me downs older than I am!
All I can think of is memories, and items handed down that have meaning.
It’s always interesting to see how much my life is like your other readers’ and then how different it is from others. My parents leaned right down when they sold their three bedroom farmhouse and 43 acres of land to buy a huge motor home to go traveling “for a while.” The “while” turned out to be 22 years. They did a good job (although it nearly did give Mom a nervous breakdown), as did my in-laws when they moved to successively smaller homes as they aged. However, my FIL was a renowned collector of everything that came his way, while my MIL was a ruthless member of the throw-it-out club. My husband is, unfortunately, more like his dad than his mom.
I did hang onto sentimental things with the plan to have them for our only child, our daughter Beth. She, to our great sorrow, died several years ago. We have just a few nieces and nephews on my husband’s side and none at all on my side since neither my sister or brother had children. It has finally hit us that our greatest gift to those few remaining relatives is to get rid of as much as possible. They may want a few of my music boxes or a few of my husband’s hunting guns, but not an entire roomful of paper and ephemera and rubber stamps and gadgets that I love, nor my husband’s tools and hunting clothes and Star Trek memorabilia.
We’re starting to lean down, but it’s hard. Very hard. The older we get, the harder it gets. But a final gift to our few remaining relatives would be an empty house, rather than a house stuffed full of things that only WE liked. Remembering that will, hopefully, make it easier to get rid of a whole lot more. Theoretically!
Dear Grace,
I am gradually parring down my possessions following on from the death of my Peter. He was a great collector of all kinds of periodicals, model trains and all sorts of electrical paraphernalia for theatre sound and lighting etc. He was involved in all this until a few weeks before his demise. It becomes easier to dispose of things as time passes.
I want to leave my boys the family photos, their family history and a nest egg for their future comfort and a feeling of self worth and love.
As our son died twelve years ago leaving a wife and one year old son behind, I don’t know if anything we have will be important to them. Since we want to leave as few things as possible we’re giving things away right now.
For years I suffered with severe depression and it coloured my thinking about possessions. Since being treated and on a great antidepressant there’s more desire to clear things out. As you say, I also hope they feel the great love we have for our DIL and grandson.
I love beautiful things but I’ve never hoarded stuff.
Due to bankruptxy someyears ago I lost my home that was foreclosured. I lost my business too. I lost everything and I had to learn to live with all of my possessions into two bags and homeless.
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Now I rent. And as I don’t feel that this is my definite home I don’t feel inclined to spend money on things to beautify it. Apart from the fact that I have a clear understanding of what is really important and what is superfluous.