Grief and clutter: Getting rid of an object doesn't mean you're getting rid of the memories

About 2 months ago my second grandmother passed away. I was not attached to her, and in many ways I still blame my eating disorder on her. Her incredibly critical attitude about weight fed into my lack of self-confidence and I went down a very unpleasant path.

The task of cleaning out her condo fell to my parents. Doesn't that sound like a great idea? Give my hoarder parents responsibility for emptying out a 1400-square foot condo loaded with stuff. Grandmom was the organized one in the family. Like, she gave Martha Stewart a run for her money.

Everything had a place and a label...problem was, there was an awful lot of stuff. 

Anyways, my mom called me and asked if I wanted anything. I asked for a TV. My aunt was apparently fighting over who got the TVs (and everything else), so my mom got snippy when I kept saying how much I really wanted the bigger TV of the two. Now, my grandmother is my father's mom, not my mom's mom and yet my mom got feisty and ended up saying, "you know, when someone dies, most people don't just care about getting a TV."

Well, she's right. Except most people's deceased loved ones didn't contribute to their eating disorder. So yeah, I'm in the anger stage of grief. If all grandmom gave me was an eating disorder, the least I could get from her was a single TV in exchange for my misery. It's not true, she did give me more than an eating disorder, we did have some good times, and maybe I'll get past it in a few more therapy sessions.

The Chief Engineer and I have a single TV (we're down from five, originally, all of which were hand-me-downs from family) is 25 years old and is a 28" CRT, box-style TV. I inherited it when Gram died. Gram was my other grandmother and she was sort of a mom/sister/best friend all wrapped into one for me, so I'm overly attached to her stuff because I was attached to her. I've mostly gotten past this, but I'm still a little touchy about the TV.

In the end my Aunt got the bigger TV and apparently most of the contents of the condo (hm, the attachments to stuff run deep in this family).  I didn't get the big TV I wanted but I did get one. It's actually a perfect fit, not too small and not too big so I guess I'm glad I didn't get the bigger one. It arrived last week and we decided to keep only one television in the house. Grandmom's TV would replace Gram's.

But every time I walk into the living room now all I can see is Grandmom, and how she's replaced Gram in what is front-and-center in our living room. *Ohh, irrational thoughts! Danger, Wil Robinson!*

Just because we get rid of an object someone had doesn't mean that we're getting rid of them, or our memories of them, or our feelings for them.

Now when I see the TV and have bad memories of Grandmom, I try to either think of good memories of Gram, or to sit down and enjoy watching Star Trek on the TV. It's hard to be angry when I'm watching Connor Trinneer being gorgeous and generally brilliant on-screen, now that I have a TV screen clear enough even to see the color of his eyes! (Amazingly blue, btw.) I did get something good from Grandmom after all, and I still have all the good memories of our time together too, even with the bad.

How can I be angry at anything when I'm watching Commander Tucker being cuddly?
What can I say, I have a thing for engineers.

I also had the opportunity to let Gram continue to help the needy. We dropped her TV off at A Wider Circle, a DC-area charity that takes furniture and uses it to furnish first apartments for homeless families. So Gram, I'm glad we were able to give a homeless family part of a cozy living room. You're gone, but we're still making memories. I don't need to keep your TV to keep my memories of you.

On the plus side, I no longer have the affluenza-influenced desire for a brand new TV and I get to hold on to my own personal record of never having purchased a TV for myself.

Gram's TV, upside down on our ottoman. Now in the home of a formerly homeless family, and we stay object-neutral with just one TV in the house. Everybody wins.

That was my conflicted mother's day. If that's how complicated things are with my grandmothers, you should see how my brain works when it thinks about my mom and my MIL.

How was your mother's day?

Grief and Clutter Series: would they have wanted you to keep this?

As we were packing up to move, I found a pair of Gram's shoe orthotics. These were the custom-made kind, meaning they had been molded from casts of her feet.

This also means they are completely useless to anyone but her. But they were made from her and that's why I kept them.

We all have an item or items we gravitate towards after someone we love dies. We want to keep the object. But, would they have wanted you to keep it?

As I've talked to people who have lost loved ones I've found that most people can still "hear" the voice of the deceased person. Not that they're hallucinating, but that they remember what the person's voice sounded like. They remember what that person likely would have said in a certain situation. Let the memory of their voice and their responses help you declutter.

Gram was a minimalist. She was very frugal. But she also knew when something was really not usable anymore. She would not have wanted me to keep something that couldn't help anyone and would just take up space. I can almost hear her telling me, "For heaven's sake, sweetheart, they're no good to anyone else. You should get rid of them."

Out they go. Item #56, Gram's orthotics.

I knew that Gram wanted me to get rid of these things. But what do you do if you feel that your relative would have wanted you to keep the item in question?

Hang on to it for the moment. There is no pressure to do this quickly. We'll take a look at this problem in an upcoming Grief and Clutter post. Like grieving itself, you will deal with grief clutter when you are ready to deal with it.

Grief and clutter series introduction

"I kept his shoes. He would need them, if he was to come back."

Joan Didion, "The Year of Magical Thinking"

My grandmother, circa 1945

When we lose a loved one we are only left with three things: our memories of them, the ways they changed our lives for the better, and the stuff they left behind.

The stuff they left behind is the only tangible thing on this list. This is what makes "grief clutter" so difficult to part with. It is the most emotional kind of clutter there is.

I'm very much still learning to deal with grief clutter. I was closer to my grandmother than I am to my father. She passed away over two years ago and yet I still have a terrible time bringing myself to even think about getting rid of many of Gram's things.

I'm going to spend more than one post on this topic because hoarding is a coping mechanism in my family. Gram was very involved in all of our lives and nothing we've had to cope with in the last few years has been as difficult as her death. I know this event plays a role in my mother's clutter-related behavior and mine. But whether or not you are a hoarder or the child of hoarders, losing a loved one is hard. Parting with their belongings is not easy.

Over the coming weeks I'll be writing posts about dealing with clutter following the loss of a loved one. Some will be about strategies for parting with this "grief clutter," and some will be about hoarding as a coping mechanism for grief and other stresses. Hopefully this series won't be depressing but instead will help us realize that the truly important things our loved ones leave us with are the intangible ones.

What objects have you held onto from family and friends you've lost? What have you gotten rid of? Why those objects?