When Losing Your Parents Also Means Losing Your Childhood Home

When you lose a parent, I’ve learned that you lose so much more than the person.

When my dad died, my world was turned upside down emotionally, but I still had my mom. I also still had my comfort zone — my home.

When my mom died 5 years later, my younger brother and I were faced with the daunting reality that our home was “underwater,” and we couldn’t afford to keep it.

With my brother relocating to finish high school with family, and me off at college in a dorm, we began the process of saying goodbye to the home.

I struggled a lot with letting it go because among many things, my family built this home from the ground up, and made so many memories there.

I had a dream shortly after my mom died, and in the dream, my mom and I were walking through our home and it was under construction. I felt a sense of distress, and my mom kept saying “It’s okay, Molly, no one lives here anymore.”

This gave me extreme peace, and the strength to begin this process.

I had to be the mature one, and figure out a plan. And fast. I had 3 weeks to get everything taken care of.

I started going through each area of the house as I felt ready to. I rented a mobile storage unit that sat in our drive way as I packed it full of things I couldn’t sell. Once I had finished that process, I began to get overwhelmed with what was left. I knew I needed help.

I had to admit to myself that this project was too big for me and my family to accomplish. We hired someone to help with the estate sale process — the best decision I ever made.

The lady we hired gave me the option to be at the estate sale and help. I decided that for me, it was in my best interest to be there. I wanted to be able to grieve the items just as I had grieved the loss of my parents, slowly, and in my own way. It helped me to have a hand in seeing where things went and to whom.

After all was said and done, I had 16X9 square feet of stored items. That was it.

It was a lot and not enough at the same time.

As I look back, these items are all I have left of my parents. These items help me feel connected to them still.

After 2 years of having the items in storage, I’m finally able to live and grieve the loss of the things I didn’t keep. I’m also enjoying living with the things I did. Those items, no matter the size, make me feel like my parents are here with me.

To this day I haven’t gone back to the home. It will be sold, and I hope that some new family will enjoy it just as much as we had.

Read more of Molly’s posts here.

Molly Dodd