Selling my Dad's home to pay for Care Home fees

[SnowWhite]

It's very true what someone said about the difference between clearing out a house when someone has died and when someone is still alive.

When Mum was still in her care home but we had sold the house she used to spend two days a week at my house (as she was so unhappy in the home). I used to give her a big box or bag of her treasures to go through and she really enjoyed that. Old photos, her handwritten cookery books from when she was 16, telegram from the queen for her diamond wedding, certificates she won at the WI for knitting and crochet, little ornaments, bits of jewellery etc.

So far she hasn't asked for anything that I got rid of because I know what's precious to her.

I will say her house was lovely and clean as she'd had a cleaner once a week for a few years who kept on top of things. Mum was also very organised so things were in order. I found it quite sad when I kept coming across little notebooks where she had written notes to herself Obviously around the time her dementia started. She wrote down every time she took paracetamol, what she wanted to tell me or her sister on the phone, what she needed to take to my house when she came for weekends and so on. It was also sad to see her beautiful handwriting deteriorating.

 

[Sparkysdream]

Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences, I am the first of my friends to be going through the dementia situation with a parent and don't really have anyone to give me advice! My Mum passed away many years ago, so it's just me and my husband trying our best to do the right thing! My Dad has always been a hoarder, and became much worse in the last decade. He had kept every bank statement since 2006! Yet we found the deeds to his house in an old photograph box.

 

[Witzend]

I think both these comments sum up the problem and explain our feelings of guilt. When someone has died we are 'free' to decide what to do with their possessions, whereas when sorting through their things because they have entered a Care Home, we feel we have no 'right' to decide what to do with their possessions and realise they are no longer capable of telling us what they would like us to keep. Plus I always had the worry that one day she might just remember a possession and ask for it. Keeping it meant I could honestly say, "Oh I didn't bring it with me, I'll bring it next time", knowing I could do so.

Hearing all tehse stories also emphasizes how almost all dementia sufferers seem to 'squirrel away things, often important things/ documents, because they've lost ability to differentiate what is important from what isn't and makes the job of 'clearing' much more of a difficult job.

I used to worry that my mother would ask about this or that, which we'd got rid of, but she never did. She showed no interest in or attachment for the things we'd brought for her room, either. There were formerly treasured painted portraits of her adored grandparents - very large - which we put on her wall. Since those were way-back memories I thought she might have remembered, but when I asked who they were, she just gave me that vague, blank look. No interest or recognition at all.

Those,portraits are another thing stored in our loft after she died. How can I possibly get rid of them?
That will be down to our own daughters one day, I suppose. Maybe I'll take photos of them, to insert into the family tree I might get around to one day...