Why Do We Hold Onto Our Loved One's Belongings?

I’m a keeper. I didn’t know I would be, but I can’t imagine parting with Daddy’s jacket.

It’s brick-red suede, and has completely worn through at the edge of the sleeves. It no longer smells of him, but I keep it.

I remember when I was a child, riding with him to Sears on Saturday morning just to buy salted peanuts and look at the tools in the tool department. He wore that jacket. I was adopted and maybe that makes me more sentimental, I don’t know, but keeping my past is important to me.

I also have his Bible, his wallet, his watch, his glasses, and a yellow shirt I remember him in.

I have lots of items that was my mother’s–her mink coat, her Russian coat, purses, jewelry, a Sunday suit, and more Bibles. (My mother was a preacher, so trust me when I say she had lots of Bibles).

I also have their photos, letters, recipes, Daddy’s old tool chest, the first gift he ever gave her when she was just 14–it’s a small cedar box that’s in the shape of a heart. If my math is right, he gave it to her in 1925. I can tell the story of how they met as if it were my own.

Why do we keep our loved one’s clothes?

Like a child’s ratty blanket, we hold on. Safety, security, identity.

Our momentos are in boxes, on shelves, in cabinets, and I know I keep way too much, but how do you let go of such things?

It’s all I have now, and I believe that by pulling out Daddy’s coat or by pinning on one of my mother’s broaches, I can see them clearer, remember better.

I remember Daddy’s bushy eyebrows, the thickness of his fingers and how I could barely squeeze my child fingers through his. I remember that jacket and how he’d wear it when we went to see his family–his sister and brother every Sunday afternoon. His faithfulness amazed me then. His loyalty and tenderness is something I value in a man.

There are issues with keeping things. Psychologists might tell you that you’re not moving on, not making room for the new. I understand the logic. A friend recently visited my home. I hadn’t seen her since my mom was alive and she commented on how much my house had changed. My mom’s antiques are no longer on display. Some have been give to other family members, others sold. This is a slow process–for me.

It no longer looks like my mother’s house. After moving my mother and her 40 years of not moving, her collections oozed out of every crevice. I barely had room for “me.” My mother was one powerful woman. She had a way of taking over. I let her reign, so to speak. As her daughter and in those last few years, caregiver, I learned how to hold my ground and still allow her to feel as if she had some independence.

But now, I have a new couch, a new dining room table. Her furniture has been divvied up among my daughters. I’ve reclaimed my throne, so to speak.

Ironically, I consider myself more of a futurist than a person who lives in the past. I lean toward modern/eclectic design and and music and I’ve made a slew of six month, one year, five year, and then year plans, always writing my future. I’m a list maker–a list for the day, the week, the month, sometimes two a day. I like noting the little things I’ve accomplished. I’ll write something down I just thought of just to get the thrill of crossing it out.

But when it comes to my parents, I’m a keeper, but it no longer keeps me in the past. I’ don’t think I fall iinto thecategory of “not moving on.”

I like to think of their clothes and personal items as a cushion to my life. As if they somehow support me and connect me. Just one look at that jacket and I’m four again. No other Bible comforts me like Daddy’s. I don’t need to even open it to feel a sense of guidance.

It takes time to get to a place to let go of at least a few things.

After your loved one dies, part of grief is when you still try to live in your old life with old clothes and the way things used surrounding you.

You weren’t ready for him to die. You don’t want to date, get a new job, or have to figure out what to do with yourself next Christmas. You don’t want to move on.

Some people get rid of things too soon. Others, too late–it’s different for each person. Finally, you begin to make your own way. Reinvent yourself. Find who you are–now. They are in you, a part of you, but you are changed. You have to go on.

What’s the time frame? Varies. I know people who were clearing out closets before the funeral. I know others who open a closet ten years later–and there’s everything just as it was. Of course, there’s always a chance of getting stuck and not being able to let go. You run that risk.

For many, somewhere around or after that first year mark, things shift–a little. You don’t have to make yourself do everything. Some things come a little easier. A little. For others, it’s two, three years before they can feel anything but blinding loss.

But somewhere along the line, you let go of a few things. You call up a family member and offer them a book or a knick-knack. You sell something, drop items off at Goodwill or another charity.

You live with the empty space for awhile before you figure out how to fill your life again. And the items you keep become more intended, more precious. They go in top drawers and the chest that sits in the guest bedroom. You leave out a few photos, a book–a silver comb that sits on your dresser.

Your loved one is now incorporated. Their clothes, their memories are a part of you, in your house so to speak–but they have a place and not like a box you trip over whenever you walk into a room. Anytime you need to, you can slide open a draw and remember. Find comfort.

And now, there’s also room for something new.

~Carol D. O’Dell, Family Advisor at Caring.com

Author, Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir,available on Amazon

Three Sure Signs Your Loved One is Ready for Hospice

You think your doctor will tell you when your loved one needs hospice?

They should know, right?

Not always the case.

I asked my mother’s doctor about hospice (Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s) months beforehand and was “poo-pooed” away. Mother had a great way of rallying herself together for doctor visits, but I lived with her, cared for her 24/7, and I was beginning to see a shift.

I knew my mother had taken a turn. I knew that both of us were over the tests, treatments, and hospital rigamarole. I knew, in essence, that she had given up the will to live.


Alzheimer’s does more to a person’s body than simply making them forget names and current events. They forget things at a molecular level as well. They forget what to do with a spoon, how to chew and swallow. These symptoms don’t just come and stay–like early dementia, it comes and goes. That makes it easier to dismiss it, deny it, and hope it isn’t true.


Some days, my mom was pretty alert and could at least remember to put whatever food was in her hand into her mouth. Although her ability to remember me or where she lived seemed permanently lost, her body could still manage biological urges.


On other days, that natural reaction of opening your mouth when food comes near–was gone. That’s a tough realization.

For the most part, Mother was still mobile, or at least trying to be. She had this incredible drive to walk, stand up, and I know that for her, Alzheimer’s had a dimension of added aggitation. Some Alzheimer’s patients pace, exhibit unbelievable strength, and can go with limited sleep.

It’s one of those diseases that can manifest itself differently in different people. Some are babblers, curse like sailors, say and do apprehensible sexual things, blurt out inappropriate racial comments. Others are silent. They’re entombed and barely ever move.

Same disease, different brains.

But how do you know as a family member/caregiver that it’s time to call hospice?

First, the working definition of hospice or palliative care is: your loved one has a “life limiting condition.” Their words, not mine. While it’s technically correct, and I can’t think of a better way to say it, it still sounds odd.

In layman’s terms, most people think it means your loved one has a diagnosis of less than six months to live, and with some hospice situations, a year. While that’s technically true, some people receive hospice or palliative services for much longer.


The difference in hospice and palliative care is that palliative care specializes in the relief of the pain, symptoms and stress of serious illness.

Hospice care always provides palliative care. Hospice focuses on terminally ill people who no longer seek treatments to cure them and who are expected to live for a year or less.

Three signs That Indicate Your Loved One is Ready For Hospice:


1. The disease has progressed to the point that there’s no cure, and you’ve decided to make your loved one comfortable and not actively seek to treat the disease.

2. You and your loved one chooses to forego any further testing of hospitalizations and will allow the dying process to happen naturally.

3. You’re ready to begin to let go, say good bye, and follow the oath of hospice, which is to “neither hinder, not hasten death.”


Check out www.nhpco.org, website for National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization for more information.

Caring Connections also shares this advice: (www.caringconnections.com)

“Anyone can inquire about hospice services. You or your loved one may call a local hospice and request services. The hospice staff will then contact your physician to determine if a referral to hospice is appropriate. Another way to inquire about hospice is to talk with your physician, and he or she can make a referral to hospice.Hospice can begin as soon as a ‘referral’ is made by the person’s doctor.

The hospice staff will then contact the person referred to set up an initial meeting to review the services the hospice will offer and sign the necessary consent forms for care to begin. Usually, care is ready to begin within a day or two of a referral. However, in urgent situations, service may begin sooner.

When is the right time to ask about hospice?
Now is the best time to learn more about hospice care and ask questions about what to expect. Although end-of-life care may be difficult to discuss, it is best for loved ones and family members to share their wishes long before it becomes a concern. This can greatly reduce stress when the time for hospice becomes apparent. When is the right time to ask about hospice?

By having these discussions in advance, uncomfortable situations can be avoided. Instead, educated decisions can be made that include the advice and input of loved ones.”

Shannon Martin of Aging Wisely shares:

Just recently when my Grandmother died, my aunt (who is a geriatric nurse) said, “I don’t know that it’s time for Hospice yet” even when my Grandmother had stopped eating and they had decided no more hospitalizations, tests etc.”


This shows there’s some denial, even among professionally trained individuals, especially when it involves their own family. Accepting that the end is near, that you will begin to have to let go, to sit quietly by a loved one’s bedside, to not go into “heroics” and throw on the paddles or rush to the ER is very, very difficult.


The last month of my own mother’s life was in many ways one of the most peaceful times of my life. It was also excruciating. As a society, we’re no longer taught to sit with death.

We’re no longer taught to let nature take its course, to relinquish our control. Learning to do this, to hear the clock tick, to let my family come and go as I sat by my mother’s bed and wiped her brow–

It was a finishing of something I had begun.

It was bone deep and cathartic, and gave me time to think and process.

I began to see the whole of my mother’s life.

It wasn’t only what hospice did for me or for my mom, it was what they stood for, the permission they gave us all to let go in love.

~Carol D. O’Dell

Author of Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir

available on Amazon

www.mothering-mother.com

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