Going through my dad’s stuff showed his sharp cognitive decline. It was like being an archaeologist and looking at the collapse of a civilization.

I just moved my parents into an CCRC. Going from 3,000sqft to 1,300sqft was painful. Luckily most of the paper clutter was only in my Dad's office (my Mom hates clutter, so made him keep it there).

One of the most inane things he keeps is the paperwork they attach to your prescriptions. You know the stuff where they list all the possible reactions. The medication they've been taking for years with information you can find online very easily. Probably easier than looking through stacks of paper. Keep every single one from every monthly/quarterly prescription for every single medication.

I was able to talk him into throwing it away before the move (how much do you want to pay to move this stack?). But now he's started back up again. UGH!

And when we were cleaning out, I hired some organizers to help. The guy found my Dad's porn stash. He was so embarrassed and approached me about what to do. I asked him if he could approach my Dad because it would be too much for his daughter (me) to ask about it.

The thing that bothered me was that my aunt said when my mom got back from the honeymoon, she asked how was it, and my mom replied, "I think I made a mistake."

ugh. All this time I thought they had started out happy, then it went downhill...I guess I thought when my brother and I were born, they were still happy. That was a bummer.

I have always known my parents marriage wasn't happy, because even to this day, 50 years later, my mom rages about him. I never had the feeling I was the product of two people who loved each other. Indeed, I always felt I had an ineradicable blood taint because I had 50% of the DNA of a man my mom hated.

The best stuff we found was my grandmothers ration book for WWII along with newspaper clippings about which stores would give you two for one on the rations on which days. Sugar always circled.

Op, just like everyone else, she was a person. She had stuff to do.

My parents split up when I was 8, but got an annulment and divorced when I was around 18 or so. My dad died in 2001, and mom died in 2019 when I was 52.

My brother and I were going through her things, we found her petition to get the annulment. In it she made her case, and had her sister, my favorite aunt, write a supporting letter. So basically, it's a document with intent to persuade, so it put my dad and the marriage in the worst possible light. The thing that bothered me was that my aunt said when my mom got back from the honeymoon, she asked how was it, and my mom replied, "I think I made a mistake."

ugh. All this time I thought they had started out happy, then it went downhill...I guess I thought when my brother and I were born, they were still happy. That was a bummer.

Anyways, my brother and I decided to get rid of it all. No one else needs to read that; descendants won't know them and it would just be for curiousity's sake.

Anonymous wrote:Check registers, auto maintenance, insurance policies, old work Rolodex, you name it. It just all seems so pointless. [b]We spend so much time doing all this stuff in life and then it’s just a heap of crap.[/b] One day my kids will be looking at my old paperwork (which is at least better organized) and be thinking the same thing, I’m sure.

There’s some stuff with sentimental value, so at least there’s that.

Absolutely!

Anonymous wrote:On a related note, did you ever find embarrassing paperwork after a parent passed away? I just learned that years ago, my mom was fired from a job for insubordination, whereas she told me she quit. I won’t share this with anyone else, but it was sad to read all the back and forth about it.

Yes! My confirmation that my mom was just as stubborn at work as she was at home!

Anonymous wrote:Check registers, auto maintenance, insurance policies, old work Rolodex, you name it. It just all seems so pointless. We spend so much time doing all this stuff in life and then it’s just a heap of crap. One day my kids will be looking at my old paperwork (which is at least better organized) and be thinking the same thing, I’m sure.

When I was decluttering my mom's house to move her to assisted living, there was an incredible amount of stuff like this. Room after room filled with paperwork, much of it over 20 years old. I think my favorite example was a cardboard moving box full of phone bills from the 1980s (this was 2010 when I was looking at it) from when she lived in another state. WHY would you keep that? And that was by no means the only paperwork she kept from when she lived in that other state - she had paid to move it all, multiple times, from state to state. Pay the bill and throw it away FFS.

Anonymous wrote:On a related note, did you ever find embarrassing paperwork after a parent passed away? I just learned that years ago, my mom was fired from a job for insubordination, whereas she told me she quit. I won’t share this with anyone else, but it was sad to read all the back and forth about it.

Oh yes. I learned that she'd never lived in a house that hadn't been foreclosed on, and never had a credit card that wasn't taken away for non-payment.

She had the money. She just didn't pay the bill.

And along similar lines, I found threatening letters from the IRS about back taxes that she hadn't even opened. I was like, do you think they're going to go away if you ignore them?

I also found out she got scammed out of fairly significant amounts of money, but too late to do anything about it.

We found some "dirty magazines" my dad had hidden and some topless photos of his former girlfriend!

Yes I found my FILs porn stash after he passed away and I thought, "ewww."

Look at any thrift store now and you will see shelves upon shelves of beautiful old china sets that no one wants anymore.

My mom bought some china sets for me, years ago, and for DD after she was born, and I thought thanks, but when are we ever going to use that? We never eat from the "best china".

Anonymous wrote:As my mom was dying she could no longer speak.

At one point I gave her a paper and pen and she gathered up enough strength to write the barely legible words, "I love you."

It's a the last piece of paper she ever wrote on. I framed it and look at it every day.

This just made me cry.

My mom never once said "I love you" to me, either in speech or writing. Yet I knew she loved me more than anyone in the whole universe. We are just not a family that expressed our sentiments like that.

A few days before she died, fearing that I was running out of time, I said, "Mom, you know that I love you, right?" She rolled her eyes and replied shortly, "Duh!"

And that was that. She was true to her non-sentimental self to the last.

As my mom was dying she could no longer speak.

At one point I gave her a paper and pen and she gathered up enough strength to write the barely legible words, "I love you."

It's a the last piece of paper she ever wrote on. I framed it and look at it every day.

Anonymous wrote:One the modt poignant things I found and kept of my mother’s was her address book. In this she kept the updated addresses of my siblings, myself. Some additions - like names of our babies you could tell were written in as she was told. Its an incredibly rich diary of the changes we all made. In her own hand, some spidery as she got older - I treaure this truly record of the mundane.

How lovely! Thank you for sharing.

One the modt poignant things I found and kept of my mother’s was her address book. In this she kept the updated addresses of my siblings, myself. Some additions - like names of our babies you could tell were written in as she was told. Its an incredibly rich diary of the changes we all made. In her own hand, some spidery as she got older - I treaure this truly record of the mundane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was talking more about the futility of life than the actual paperwork.

I felt something similar going through my mom's stuff.

Objects that she has used and treasured...none of us wanted. We had no room for it. And most of it had no meaning to us, let alone our kids.

It made me kind of depressed, like how quickly you are forgotten. Your mark is stamped out. I assumed it took a few generations...but it seems to be like one.

Agree it is sad. Part of that is because most of us are now from generations that have much more disposable income along with conspicuous consumption. Things don't mean as much because they are easily replaced by the more trendy, more expensive or more technologically advanced items.

Older generations placed greater value on some things because they were "once in a lifetime" purchases and were considered a precious investment. Look at any thrift store now and you will see shelves upon shelves of beautiful old china sets that no one wants anymore. It makes me sad to think of so many women who may have sacrificed or strictly budgeted to acquire them for their families to use and cherish. Now they are collecting dust in a junk store.

But that beautiful old china gave those women joy during their lifetime. Just because they weren’t correct in thinking that it would be cherished by future generations doesn’t mean their pleasure wasn’t real or important.

I don't think your mother is "forgotten" because you didn't want to keep her stuff around. I lost my mom years ago and kept almost none of her things, but I still think of her frequently and of what a good person she was. And so does the rest of the family. What more could anyone ask?