Stuff and Sentimentality

We are still clearing out my in-laws’ house, but we can see an end to it now. My husband has had a huge job clearing the garage of building materials and tools, and is almost done. Whenever we discussed moving with my in-laws over the last 20 years, my FIL would say, bewildered, “but what will I do with all my tools?” And inertia won out. Many of the tools were his father’s, and one item in particular – a lathe – seemed to centre largely in his concerns. A wonderful solution was found. A neighbour (and one of his very few friends) who had lived next door for 40 years, with her boys raised alongside my husband and his brothers, sought the lathe for one of her grandsons. Yes, it is sad that FIL did not have any grandchildren in New Zealand who could or would take the lathe. But this is the next best thing. I could see the burden lift from my husband as the decision was being made.

 One of my brothers-in-law accused my husband of not being sentimental about his father. This particular brother has lived overseas for decades, and has made very few trips back to see his parents. I was furious at this, having watched the tenderness with which my husband cared for his parents, and then his father alone, in the last years. And pointed out that sentimentality is a luxury that perhaps comes from distance, not proximity over 30 years!

My latest task was to take all my MIL’s jewellery and send photos to all the generations to see what, if anything, they would like. Most of it is costume jewellery, but there are a few interesting vintage pieces. It has taken hours, and in this my husband has not been sentimental, as he suggests – barring a few things – he would just have given them to a charity shop. But I thought of the grandchildren, in particular the granddaughters, and how nice it would be for them to choose a piece or two from their grandmother. I have worked over it for hours –sorting the items, getting photos in the right size to send, compiling documents, etc – and wondered myself if I am crazy. But I do it for the grandchildren. Ironic, isn’t it?

Once again, I think about who will look over my jewellery. One or some of my nieces, I assume. It’s not as if I have a lot of expensive jewellery – I have few pieces that could not be described as costume jewellery, as I have always prized interesting pieces or interesting trips over diamonds! I hope that I will have any special pieces labelled or itemised, as my MIL did with her most precious four rings. It strikes me that I need to do this now, not leave everything until it is too late, as there are a couple of pieces that hold some sentimentality for me. After all, I could be run over by a bus tomorrow!

I promise I will finish these posts soon. We are about to engage a real estate agent, and put the house on the market. What then, I wonder? Will we feel empty, and need new projects? Will we feel ridiculously free? Or perhaps we will turn inwards, and begin some more “death cleaning,” this time with our own belongings? I suspect it will be a little of all of the above.

 

Cleaning up my stuff

 As we begin the long process of sorting through my in-laws' house, I once again sit back and wonder about our end of life. I'm not worried so much about who will want my stuff. I don't expect anyone will want it - and I'm okay with that. But who will clean up after us, in the way we are cleaning up after my in-laws? I look around our messiest room - the one I'm in at the moment - and think how awful it would be for someone to go through! I'

There's a thing called Swedish Death Cleaning. I can't remember where I first read about it, but it effectively means people in their retirement cleaning out their houses, getting rid of all their junk, and only keeping the relevant papers, and things that they need to live their lives. My mother did it. She didn't know she was doing Swedish Death Cleaning. But she sorted through all her closets and threw out clothes she no longer wore. She sorted through her papers, and (sometimes before I could stop her) was ruthless about what she kept and what she didn't. It made life easier for my sisters and I when she died - her small house still had plenty of stuff in it. But it was much easier to sort through. There was relatively little that needed to be thrown away.

I'm barely retired (I prefer unemployed, as it implies I am still employable!), but I need to do this. Seriously. Let's face it - if I had kids, I would still need to do it. We live in a four bedroom house that is full of our stuff. When there is space, it seems we spread out to fill it up. There are hundreds of books and papers that need to go. And clothes that I keep "just in case." Yes, maybe I need to do a Kondo number on my house. Or maybe I just need a spring clean - clean it up AND clear it out. This has always been the case, and so it isn't really Swedish Death Cleaning. But with cleaning out the in-laws' house it has become more obvious now that this is a job that will need to be done at some stage, and preferably (for my own peace of mind) sooner than later. I need to do as I say. Because this office is a bit of a dump!

Thinking about "our stuff" again

Last week, Mel wrote about a book by a bookseller in Scotland. I'll summarise her post here, but it's worth going to read it in detail here.

Early in the book, the bookseller talked about going to the estate of a No Kidding couple to clear their books so he could resell them in his shop. He clearly found it sad to see the house of the couple who had no children, to know the books were going, and that there was no-one (his assumption) who would treasure the photos on the wall. He felt that the woman’s book collection was "as close as anything she left to some kind of genetic inheritance."

Mel had a hard time with this, and wrote: "Dismantling any person’s book collection is about releasing their character, and hopefully all of us are more than just our book collections."

I read both the quotes from the book (you really have to read Mel's post), and Mel's commentary, and felt slightly uncomfortable too.

Firstly, I reacted to the bookseller's feeling of sadness about taking the book collection of the couple without children. I was grateful that he acknowledged the loss in their lives, whilst at the same time irked that he seemed to think there was an innate sadness in lives without children, without knowing if they had chosen not to have children, or had had that situation forced upon them. It's confusing when we want understanding, but don't want judgement and pity! I appreciated too that he didn't dismiss their lives as unimportant, because there weren't children left behind to grieve, but saw them as real people, with characters and interests reflected in their books.

Then I reacted to Mel's comment that dismantling any person's book collection is the same, whether or not they have children. I will admit that I bristled a little, because it sounded to me a little bit like the "all lives matter" reaction. It seemed to deny the genuine empathy this bookseller seemed to feel for the couple without children, and it seemed to deny the realities of disposing of the possessions of those without children, compared to those with children. Because the truth is, not having children affects every aspect of our lives, and even our deaths, in a way that it does not affect parents. Our possessions are precious only to us, our history is important only to us, our joys are important only to us. We end with us. I end with me. Parents don't usually have to feel that.

So I couldn't comment on the post - except for a note that my book collection is largely digital or borrowed these days - because I had thoughts swirling about, agreeing and at the same time disagreeing with both the author, and with Mel. I've been a bit melancholy the last few days (for reasons which I may divulge soon), and I am sure that influenced how I felt.

I guess it made me sad that there will be no-one who will know which are my favourite books when I go, no-one who will want the pictures on my wall, or even necessarily be curious about those pictures on my way, no-one to pass on the things I love. So in a moment of pure indulgence, I felt sorry for myself, and for a while, I let myself feel sorry for myself.

I shook it off. I've thought about these issues when I've felt stronger, and written about them too (here, for example).  I know that I am more (as Mel pointed out) than my book collection, more than just my possessions. I've already written about my legacy being more than whether or not I have children. I have accepted that my possessions serve me and my husband, and only me and my husband, and I am happy if they work for us, and give us pleasure, because that's all any of us can ever control.

Still, sometimes, it all creeps up on us, on me. Sometimes there is an emptiness that seeps through the armour I've learned to wear against the outer world, against the losses that I've faced, and against the danger of my own thoughts and fears. It hits us when our defences are down, and reminds us of what we've lost. That's okay, too. We all need to be allowed to feel what we feel. As long as we can clear our heads, reapply logic, and regain our confidence. Our value and legacy does not depend on whether or not we have children, or on our possessions and who might want them. I know that. But it is an important reminder.

This is my last will and testament ...

Being of sound mind and body ... okay, as a 48 year old woman, I accept that I am neither of these, but I know I need to make this declaration soon.  I've been thinking about making a new Will for a long time.  It is already well overdue.  My husband and I made our Wills in 1990, just before we left to live in Thailand for three years.  We were young, and relatively impoverished at the time.  Our Wills were simple.  Twenty years later, we have yet to update these Wills.  We don't have children of course, and this means that we haven't felt the urgency.  (Mind you, I know of people with children who don't have Wills either.  They're just in denial.)

I probably have stronger feelings about what I would like to have in my Will than my husband does.  I'd like to ensure we have a deal, that if I go before him, in his Will he honours some of my wishes, and vice versa.   We had a cheery chat at a cafe on Saturday about what we'd put in our Wills.  Bear in mind that we're not wealthy, but we do own a house, and have some investments.  We're hoping to use them to fund a long and healthy retirement, of course, but after hearing some shocking and sad news about one of my husband's younger relatives on the weekend, we are suddenly reminded that life can end in the blink of an eye, or the buck of a horse.

Of course, Wills aren't something people talk about much, except for the occasional comment along the lines of "yes, I must make/update my Will soon!"  And so it's hard to know what most people do.  I expect that most people leave their worldly goods to their partners and then their children.  But of course, those of us who don't have children don't have that option.  And I, for one, would like to know that my estate makes a difference to someone when I die.  (The whole issue of death for people with no kids is another - or many other - posts). I wonder if people with children contemplate the same thing?   I know my parents (well, now just my mother), and my husband's parents, are pleased to be able to leave anything they have to their children.  That's what they worked for all their lives, they say, and I can understand that.  I guess multi-millionaires might have a greater quandary.  A well-known NZ businessman has commented that he made his millions himself, and he took great satisfaction from that, and so he wants his children to earn their money too. So apparently he's leaving them nothing, though I suspect that his idea of nothing is a few million each - you know, pocket money! 

Anyway, the point I'm getting to is that we need to make a new Will.  And that because we don't have kids, we need to be a bit creative in terms of who gets what.

I want to leave money to the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, a charity that is very dear to my heart, despite being based in the UK (they were the first on-line community I ever joined).  They save women's lives (literally) and sanity every day, and they do it on the smell of an oily rag.  I can't do much to help them from New Zealand, but they deserve to be helped, to have some of the pressure taken off them, so they can continue helping women from all around the world .

We don't have that many children in our lives.  Nieces and nephews from my husband's side all live overseas, and are all from prosperous families. Nieces on my side are all grown, except for lovely CJ of course.  But I have a great-nephew (my sister, the grandmother, thinks being a great-aunt sounds so much worse than being a grandmother - I of course, disagree!).  His parents are not well off, and I think an education fund for him would be useful.  Education these days is much more expensive than when I went to university (I was paid to go!), and if I can help him that would be great.  A trust, to assist with the education of any of my nieces' future children, would be a good idea. That came to us over eggs and bacon and a nice pinot gris.

I've often said I'd like to arrange for an AFS scholarship (the student exchange I went on when I was 17) for a student from my old High School.  That's something I would still like to do I think, and would need some arranging.

There are some well-known medical research agencies in New Zealand, and my husband would be keen to leave some money to them too.  Not that our paltry amounts would mean much, but hopefully it would help.

And of course, there are the charities that are important to us or those we love, such as cancer, cystic fibrosis and arthritis.  Yes, we're running out of money.  We realised this even before we'd ordered our latte and hot chocolate.

Then of course we need to leave our belongings to people who would appreciate them.  We are not blind here though - we accept that what is special to us won't be special to anyone else.  We love our things - our teapot bought in the Atlas Mountains, the Vietnamese painting or the African wall hanging - because of the memories.  Others don't share those memories, and so the value of these possessions dies with us.  We're not overly sentimental about this.  The only thing I worry about is my great-grandmother's piano.  I want it to be loved and treasured, in the way that I love and treasure it.   I have just realised that I wrote about it here, mentioning this same concern over two years ago.

And - as my husband jokes - we mustn't forget  the Cats' Home.

We'll sort out executors/Trustees later.  That'll be another can of worms.