Big day tomorrow.

Emp_Fab

Sorry for the self-indulgent tone of this thread but it's important to me...  (and I'm a bit pissed)

As some may recall, my mum died unexpectedly in August 2016.  Tomorrow, the sale of her house... my family home from the age of ten until I left at age... er....   never mind that bit....  will complete and it will belong to someone else.  We moved there from London in May 1974, when I was just 10, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and the house cost my parents the grand sum of £11,000 !  I remember the day we moved in.  I was thrilled to discover that the Welsh channels were showing the Six Million Dollar Man, which had ended on the London stations and I remember phoning my old mate in London to gloat about it :-)

So many memories...  and as of tomorrow, I won't be able to go there anymore.  I have so many...  rebuilding my Honda 550 in the garage, hanging the tank up from the rafters to respray it.  Mum popping up to bring me a cup of tea.  Me taking my VF550 out, and polishing it adoringly on the weekends.  Staggering in at god knows what hour, off my tits, trying to creep up the stairs without being heard.  Christmases with everyone there.  Me writing programs on my dad's new Amstrad computer.  Me getting into bulletin boards on my old Atari 520 STFM before the invention of the internet.  Thousands of memories...

Now, the house is bare.  No furniture, nothing left - just empty rooms.  I'm not ashamed to admit I walked around the house this week, alone, and sobbed my heart out.  It seems so odd that a home so full of life and love can end up being just a bunch of empty rooms on the market to the highest bidder.

As of tomorrow, I'll be debt free for the first time in thirty years, but I'd much rather still have my mum.

I guess it's just one of those moments in life that all of us has to go through but we don't realise how important they are until it happens to us.

I've been dreading the day that I say my goodbyes to the house for a long time.  I'll be going over there in the morning to pick up the last few items, give the carpets a quick hoover and hand the keys to the estate agent.  Strange days indeed.   

CloudNine

Don't worry fella, the memories exist in your head, not in the house, so you aren't really losing anything tomorrow.

Guitar_Slinger

One the one hand, I remember begrudgingly moving out of my "first house" aged 12 and complaining that I'd lived there all my life. Fucking lol

On the other, my Nan is 90 and all the stuff you remember doing in your house, I remember her being around during various bits of my existence.  Chin up and celebrate your life.

shoodurs

Twas the exact same for me. 8 years ago my mum died 15 months after my dad. As an only child I had to deal with the estate and empty the house my self. I quickly sold the house and before I left for the last time wandered around it and burst into tears. Some money from the sale cleared my mortgage which was a very humbling experience. Nowadays I pass it without too much of a thought which might seem cold to some but not me. Strange how quick you can adjust to things/changes through time.

joeyowen

I know it isn't the same, but I lost my Gran last week.

I've spent the day at her house clearing it all out with my Dad and Uncle.  It is bittersweet.  I miss her a lot, but still smile at some silly things.  Plectrums down the side of her bed for one!  Or the sleeping bag I used 20 years ago when I was a kid.  It will be on the market soon.  Everything has to go.

The important thing is, you had a family home to build so many great memories.  It wasn't the bricks that did that, your family did.  As said above, you aren't losing any memories, just the house.  However, it still sucks. 

richardhomer

I agree it’s a very strange thing saying goodbye to a childhood home - it felt like the day I had to finally grow up for me - I was 40 at the time....  Inevitably a family home stands as a sort of ‘monument’ to your parents - a physical embodiment of their working lives - and the emotional framework they created. 

I’m sure it’ll be a tough day Emp - all the best with it. The new owners will create their own history in there - which is actually a great thing....

DrCornelius

Hope it goes as well as it can, this stuff has been on my mind a lot recently and I'm dreading it.

BRISTOL86

Haven’t had to do it with a parent but have done it with grandparents. It’s a surreal feeling seeing it removed of contents etc and the things you associate with it. 

All the best. 

stickyfiddle

This is definitely all normal feelings. Leaving my Nana's house (and my mum's childhood home) for the last time was very hard. I went round and took photos of each room so I can't forget all the little details, and so I can give them to my Mum at some point. 18 months later and I still don't want to look at the pictures.

Dominic

I am doing exactly the same with my mother's house at the moment........it's on the market but still very much as she left it and all the furniture is still there because it's nicely done and the agent s thought it showed better this way.
 Sadly,my mother had been gone for 18 months but I walk around the house and see her everywhere - it's almost as if all is still well and she has just "popped to the shops" as she used to say.
 Its a very cathartic experience to stroll through all your childhood memories in your mid fifties.
I think @richardhomer has hit the nail on the head
I wish you many happy memories Mr Emp

Axe_meister

Just think a new family will move in and new memories will be created for a new generation. 
Still sucks though. Alas I will never have that feeling, we moved about a lot when I was a kid. My mum lives in a house I never lived in so I won't have that attachment. Fortunately my mum is the fittest 70 year old I've every met. I will likely be retiring myself before she passes away.

JAYJO

Lost my mother shortly after i lost my father. The house we lived in for 30 odd years was on a council estate. The council gave us some time to clear it out but not long. We had to pay for any changes made to the property which were minimal. 
As i left the house for the last time i watched a council worker throwing my mothers beloved wall lights into a skip. 
My mother worked hard on the garden and it shows. Now. When i pass the house the garden is overgrown and honestly looks a disgrace. The council have a new tennant and the neighbours who have bought their houses must be livid.
Lots of good memories and bad . no regrets my mother would not have liked any of us to live there (3 of us) and expected us to do better and we all have done.
chin up mate good luck for the future.

Phil_aka_Pip

Axe_meister said:

my mum is the fittest 70 year old I've ever met

you are Oedipus and ICM £5

ESBlonde

Perfectly normal behaviour and nothing to be ashamed of.
I was born in my Grandparents house in a small village in Leicestershire. My father had built a bungalow next door in the plot of land but it still left a huge garden and orchard. The extended family were once a large part of the small village, today over 50 years later just my fathers cousin still lives there. The house was sold decades ago and the land built on so much that the bungalow now seems to have a huge garden compared to the little gardens all the other houses now have. I would often have cause to revisit my childhood village over the interveening years. Last time was spring 2016 when my son played in the trials for the under 21 UK pool team, I drove through the village which has yet more massive housing development in progress and for the first time I could actually feel I didn't belong. I've not lived there for 55 years although I visited family ofton that did.
They can't take the memories though. I don't know if that helps @Emp_Fab but you will carry on, look to the future but remeber your past.

boogieman

My mum has lived in the same house for 55 years. We’re currently clearing some of the 50+ years worth of crap she’s accumulated, as she’s either going to need loads of work done on the house or it’ll get sold for her to move to a residential home. We’ve been clearing her horde of shite since just after Xmas and there’s still three bedrooms and the loft (rammed to the eaves) to go. I grew up in the house but it has no good memories for me, I just associate it with my parents’ awful divorce. Can’t wait to see the back of it to be honest. 

ourmaninthenorth

Emp_Fab said:

Sorry for the self-indulgent tone of this thread but it's important to me...  (and I'm a bit pissed)

As some may recall, my mum died unexpectedly in August 2016.  Tomorrow, the sale of her house... my family home from the age of ten until I left at age... er....   never mind that bit....  will complete and it will belong to someone else.  We moved there from London in May 1974, when I was just 10, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and the house cost my parents the grand sum of £11,000 !  I remember the day we moved in.  I was thrilled to discover that the Welsh channels were showing the Six Million Dollar Man, which had ended on the London stations and I remember phoning my old mate in London to gloat about it :-)

So many memories...  and as of tomorrow, I won't be able to go there anymore.  I have so many...  rebuilding my Honda 550 in the garage, hanging the tank up from the rafters to respray it.  Mum popping up to bring me a cup of tea.  Me taking my VF550 out, and polishing it adoringly on the weekends.  Staggering in at god knows what hour, off my tits, trying to creep up the stairs without being heard.  Christmases with everyone there.  Me writing programs on my dad's new Amstrad computer.  Me getting into bulletin boards on my old Atari 520 STFM before the invention of the internet.  Thousands of memories...

Now, the house is bare.  No furniture, nothing left - just empty rooms.  I'm not ashamed to admit I walked around the house this week, alone, and sobbed my heart out.  It seems so odd that a home so full of life and love can end up being just a bunch of empty rooms on the market to the highest bidder.

As of tomorrow, I'll be debt free for the first time in thirty years, but I'd much rather still have my mum.

I guess it's just one of those moments in life that all of us has to go through but we don't realise how important they are until it happens to us.

I've been dreading the day that I say my goodbyes to the house for a long time.  I'll be going over there in the morning to pick up the last few items, give the carpets a quick hoover and hand the keys to the estate agent.  Strange days indeed.   

That's the best thing I've seen you write to date. 

The pain will distil itself to memory...it's those we need to cling on to.

Stay cool..it'll be OK in time. 

chillidoggy

I think all that's only natural behaviour.

Apart from hoovering the carpets, obv.

EricTheWeary

We cleared out my mother in law’s flat two years ago. She hadn’t been in there all that long and there wasn’t much stuff, almost worse that there was so little evidence of 80+ years on the planet. MrsTheWeary brought a can of macaroni cheese home and that’s still in our cupboard, weird momento that she can’t throw away. 

I cleared some some of my dad’s stuff out after he died eight years ago but my mother is still in the house. I sometimes wonder what that will be like, having to throw away the crap she’s accumulated in 51 years there. I can’t even sort out my own garage. 

Perfectly natural to be upset. 

Jalapeno

With no one in it it's just a house, not a home. Treasure the memories.

boogieman

EricTheWeary said:

I cleared some some of my dad’s stuff out after he died eight years ago but my mother is still in the house. I sometimes wonder what that will be like, having to throw away the crap she’s accumulated in 51 years there. I can’t even sort out my own garage. 

As long as it IS crap, it will only be a nuisance, nothing more. My mum has kept ridiculous things, like junk mail, old telephone directories and takeaway menus from god knows when. It doesn’t mean anything to either her or me. There will be things that you’ll want to hang on to presumably, but most stuff is just....stuff.

The only things I want from my mum’s place are her family photos, everything else can go. As someone else has said, the best memories are in your head already, you don’t really need objects to keep those alive. 

Emp_Fab

Thanks chaps.  Very kind words.   It's done...   All that's left now are the final utility bills to pay... The last vestige of a human life.  The tornado that ripped through my family on 12th August 2016 when she unexpectedly died has finally moved on, leaving us irreversibly changed.  There is nothing left to do now but let slip the rope and let her drift away - to become part of history.  If the boat analogy sounds weird, I have the image of the final scene from Lord of the Rings in my mind where Bilbo sails away to die.  I didn't actually keep my mother tied up on a harbour. 

I'm finding this 'closure' hard.  It's the final letting go that I don't want to make.  Until now there was plenty of stuff that needed doing in relation to her.  Now there's nothing but the memories.