Iwas browsing in a recycled clothing shop recently when I started talking to a woman who was holidaying in Melbourne. She wanted my opinion on a brightly coloured jacket she was eyeing. Laughing because I was in my usual uniform of whatever black clothes were clean, I told her it looked great and urged her to buy it. But she wavered, admitting that although she’d begun hunting out more unusual clothes since retirement, she was also in the process of shedding her belongings.
I’d heard about “Swedish death cleaning” from friends whose parents were downsizing in anticipation of what they’d leave behind, and I blurted out the fact that my father had died suddenly, and my brother and I were in the painful process of cleaning out his house. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to reveal my loss, but as I talked, a sting of tears threatened.
The woman obviously noticed because she stopped flicking through a rack of skirts to give me her full attention. In a gravelly voice she explained that before she’d retired, she’d worked for many years as a psychologist, helping families deal with death. Her job had often involved mediation between fighting siblings, because even those who were close struggled with the differences in their approach to sorting through an estate. Some of us are impatient and just want it done, while others have to handle every item before allowing anything to be binned. I’d had some experience with this when my mum died, and I’d manically hunted for her letters as a way of preserving her, but hearing it confirmed from a stranger in an unexpected place was somehow reassuring.
While other people continued to shop around us, the woman gave me the advice she used to give her clients. Make three piles. One pile for what my brother and I both agreed could be thrown out or given away. One pile for what we both definitely wanted to keep. And one pile for the great undecided. She also said we shouldn’t remove anything from the house until it made it into one of the piles that we both agreed upon.
Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning
I told her that it was too late for us. We’d already started emptying rooms in a highly haphazard way, excavating drawers, cupboards and filing cabinets and discovering school reports and photographs that we thought were lost to the years. Our days at the house were partly spent sneezing because of the dust, partly in a state of reverie as we lost ourselves to memories we hadn’t considered since we were children, and partly complaining about the seemingly never-ending task we’d begun.
I joked that Dad was as far from a Swedish death cleaner as was possible to be. Instead, he’d kept everything. From all the birthday cards and notes my children had written him since they could hold a pen, to T-shirts worn on holidays in another time. His house had a certain order to it and was livable, but it was clear that he’d clung on to many things for sentimental reasons and not for practical ones.
As we talked, I realised that although it would now be easier for us if Dad had sorted things before he died, the process of emptying his house was allowing me to see him differently. There are complex reasons why we file one love letter and not another, scribble a note on the back of a photograph to remind us of a treasured day, and store recipes of foods so familiar we can almost taste them when we read the list of ingredients. We may never know the reason why someone has kept these things, but we can at least use their belongings to map out what mattered most to them.
Theoretically a Swedish death clean means a lighter load for those tasked with emptying your space after you’re gone, but it can also mean the loss of mementoes, treasures and historical ephemera that can help the living to put together the puzzle of who you were. I’ve discovered things about Dad I didn’t know. Sure, some things I didn’t need to know, but others have helped to make the pain of losing him slightly easier.
The woman nodded like she understood but told me she was still set in her plan to minimise what she owned so that nobody else would be stuck with it. Before we could continue talking, her daughter appeared, and it was clear that she was eager for them to leave. I asked if she thought her mum should buy the brightly coloured jacket and she shook her head. Smiling, she told me that it was too hot in Far North Queensland for a padded coat. And besides, her mum already had enough clothes. She really didn’t need any more.
Nova Weetman is an award-winning children’s author. Her memoir, Love, Death & Other Scenes, is published by UQP