Last summer I had the daunting task of cleaning out my mother’s storage unit.
Alone.
I had exactly one month to finish getting rid of my mother’s possessions. I had no home to store them myself and my sister was in another country. All of these things combined worked against me and my attempt to do my mother’s stuff justice.
At this point I think it’s important to include a disclaimer, so — I’m a very prideful person and I hate asking for help. This means days were long and hard. Unlike the boxes that lessened in number each day, the ease of unpacking, repacking and dropping off things at Goodwill, did not.
My schedule was as following:
9AM: Go for a run, skip shower and go straight to storage unit
11AM-6PM: Empty out the front of the unit, try to reach boxes that were arranged Tetris style*
6PM-Bedtime: Go back home, Netflix
Every day I had plans to get involved with a local Bible Study, or go to a yoga class, or basically do anything productive and every day I would end up snuggled up with Grey’s Anatomy.
I was too exhausted mentally and physically to peel myself off the couch and away from the television to do something soul-filling.
At the time, I thought I was just being lazy, but after some self-reflection, I realized just how exhausting going through my mother’s stuff actually was. Instead of beating myself up over how lazy I was acting, I gave in and allowed myself to have those evenings to escape into Seattle Grace Hospital and away from the pain of reliving my mother’s life every day.
Each item I picked up had a familiar and well known story behind it. The cookbooks were gifts from throughout the years from when I was a kid, the kitchen utensils she bought when she moved out of my Grandmother’s house and into her first apartment as a free woman. The paintings she hung that she found at thrift stores and bought simply because they “made her happy.”
And then of course there were the sentimental things that she kept for herself that didn’t resonate in a similar manner with me. For instance, what am I supposed to do with my old baby teeth? The things that moms keep because it was when their “baby” was a baby.
Those things don’t really mean anything to me, but how do I throw out something that she attributed value to?
Cleaning out the storage unit was exhausting, painful, and the loneliest thing I have ever done. I was alone every day with the memories of my mother and my own thoughts. And that can be a very dangerous place.
If you’re preparing to clean out your loved one’s belongings, here are some tips that I wish I had known then:
1. Let yourself grieve. Even though I had a time span of July 4-July 30 to clear out the storage unit, I needed every single minute of that time to fully process what was happening. I needed to savor each piece of jewelry I picked up and check every coat pocket from blazers to rain jackets to winter coats before I could actually place it in the car to go to Goodwill. And then a second layer of grieving needed to occur over the material objects themselves. I had to let go of things I had seen my mother wear and use since childhood. There was so much grieving that had to happen and I wasn’t prepared for it.
2. Ask others for help. I didn’t think that anyone else could be trusted to go through my mom’s things or that it was their place to do so. However, I called two different friends in tears over how stressed out I was in trying to clear out the unit, and they both responded with “why didn’t you call me, I would have driven down and helped.” And you know what, they very well could have. I didn’t need to go through the outdated clothing myself. They could have done that and then let me know if something of interest popped up. Or they could have dropped off the stuff at Goodwill so that I could reset for a moment before starting on the next box of goods. My friends were so willing and ready to help me, but I had to ask for it. And because I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t get any help. So go ahead, ask for help.
3. Know your limits. If you wake up one day and all that’s in your head is, “I can’t do it today” then don’t do it. Going through a loved one’s stuff uncovers places in your grief that you didn’t even know you had. If you’re like me, you don’t recognize how they are affecting you until after everything is over. If something is uncomfortable, test it out, evaluate if it is an “uncomfortable” pain that is going to help like when working out, or if it is going to hurt. Make your next decision depending on what you answer. Take it easy if you need to, there is no handbook, timetable or “cleaning” article that says there’s one right way or timeframe for organizing your loved one’s things.
Take each item as it comes. Evaluate how you will feel if you toss it, donate it or decide to keep it. Keep in mind though, that whatever you decide, the memories attached to those items will never go away.
There were things I threw out and things I decided to keep. At the end keeping a small box of items from the storage unit worked for me.
I stored them at my sister’s house and moved to Washington with only three of my mom’s things — two t-shirts and her wedding band.
One of the shirts was a school pride t-shirt that said “Virginia Tech Mom.” I bought for her on the Mother’s Day we found out she was cancer free and I knew she would see me graduate (even though she didn’t), a t-shirt that I think might have belonged to her boyfriend but was too soft and comforting to not wrap myself in, and her wedding band — which is pretty self-explanatory.
If keeping things isn’t an option, an alternative is taking pictures of things and writing memories down. This way no matter what you’ll have something to hold on to, if need be.
*As far as furniture was concerned, I had to take out the pieces that I wanted to save for my own apartment one day and sell them since I was now moving across the country via plane and saw no plans to settle down and get “adult” furnishings any time soon.
