Up there in the category with death and taxes is this inevitability: At some point everyone will likely have to clear out a parent's home.
I'm not going to soften the blow. It's like having open-heart surgery without anesthesia.
"It falls into the 'most stressful' category," said Peter Brenton, of Medford, Mass., who, with his two older sisters, cleared out their childhood home this past year after their mother died. Having gone through this myself, I felt an instant rapport.
"Our parents weren't classic hoarders," said Brenton, who is 47 and among the most clear-headed people I have ever talked to. (I learned he worked as an administrator in the nuclear engineering department atMIT.) "But they hung onto a lot of things they saw no reason to throw away."
"Tell me about it!" I said. I think of the dozens of gift bags Mom had stashed, and all the vases from every floral arrangement she'd ever received.
"Financial papers and receipts that went back 30 years," he said. "Wedding gifts they received in 1955, which they didn't like and never opened. Guns and ammunition."
"Wait. Guns and ammunition?"
"I don't have a gun license," he said. "In Massachusetts it's illegal for me to carry even a bullet. What was I supposed to do with this?"
"The memorabilia was the most excruciating," said his oldest sister, Anne Brenton Isenberg. "We opened box after box marked 'miscellaneous.' Every box was like a time capsule."
"My parents had the exact same boxes!" I said. "You open one and fall into the Black Hole of Calcutta."
Every family moves through the process differently, some better than others. These siblings began last spring, and dedicated most Sundays to the task.
"As the executor, Peter felt the weight of the job," said Isenberg, who's 55. "He was the practical one and kept pushing. My sister and I would have let things sit for a year."
"Sometimes I had to be more firm than was polite," Brenton said.
The first two Sundays, they filled two Dumpsters. That was the easy part. "Here's where it got sensitive," Brenton said. "Most Sundays we worked six to seven hours, except when we got in a stupid fight."
The day they spent sticking their names on items they wanted "ended in a horrible argument," he said. "None of us was blameless."
"I love my siblings," Isenberg said, "but we had to pull away."
"We fought not over any (one) thing, but because of the emotional weight of sorting through it all," said Brenton. They made a rule: Nothing would leave the house without all three agreeing.
Then he nailed the heart of the problem: "We knew we had to get rid of 95 percent of the stuff," he said. "None of us has a huge house. We all have our own objects that have sentimental value."
They didn't need to explain it to me. I wanted to cling like a barnacle to every remnant of the lives that were slipping from me, but I also did not want to add to my load.
For those of you who still have this coming, here are some guiding lights that helped the Brentons get through it.
1. Keep the end in mind. When the siblings' spirits lagged, Brenton brought up their goal: Empty the house — which was costing them $1,800 a month — so they could sell it.
2. Know what you want and why. "I looked for things that I remembered the story from, or remembered my parents really valuing," said Brenton, "but also that I had room for and would use." For example: A monogrammed keybox his father carried so keys wouldn't poke holes in his pockets. It's small, personal and useful.
3. Remember: You're family. When two antique clocks became a little contentious, because Brenton wanted both and so did his sisters, this realization helped: "I really didn't want both clocks," said Brenton. "What I really wanted was to keep them in the family."
4. Hire help. Although I chose to sell most of my parents' belongings myself through an estate sale, that's not for everyone. "I knew from the start we wouldn't be able to do that," Brenton said. After they sorted the personal items, they brought in professionals. MaxSold, a company their realtor recommended, has 50 years of auction experience and uses social media to liquidate households swiftly.
5. Beware of reverse sticker shock. "Like many people, we thought there was more money in stuff than there really was," said Brenton. "We weren't out to get the highest price, but MaxSold helped us see that the pricing was appropriate for the goal."
6. Buy yourself peace. In two weeks, MaxSold — which gets 30 percent of the sale proceeds — had grouped, photographed, cataloged and auctioned off everything. "For people in our situation ... this was absolutely worth the money," Branton said.
7. Listen to your parents. When Isenberg catches herself missing an item, she summons the voice of her mother. "She would tell me, 'You have to let that go, honey. It's gone. You have what's important: your memories, your children, your life."
The Brenton family house went on the market in November, and sold in January — 11 months after their mom's death.
Next week: MaxSold's founder shares tips on how to clear a house and how much the average household of stuff is worth.
Syndicated columnist and speaker Marni Jameson is the author of "House of Havoc" and "The House Always Wins" (Da Capo Press). Contact her through marnijameson.com.
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