Endings are hard.

Saturday was a really strange day.

Generally, when you have to clear your parents’ house out, it’s after they’ve both passed. But I found myself on Saturday (with the help of family and my boyfriend) cleaning out my Dad’s house while he sits in a hospital that we don’t know if he will ever come home from.

I thought a lot about that on the drive over, and I started to tear up thinking about the task that lay ahead.

On top of my dad’s things, everything of my stepmom’s was still there, pretty much just as it was left when she passed away in June.

And somehow, in 8 hours, we were done. Two entire lives cleared out of the house in a day.

We found old black and white photos of our grandparents, photos of us kids when we were little, pictures from family reunions. Tara and I paused here and there to share a family joke or tell a story. We laughed. But it was the oddest of days.

I held it together like a champ while we were there, even after we left. It wasn’t until the evening when I finally sat down to rest, that it all hit me. I immediately called my mom crying.

“No more family dinners at Dad’s house. No more holidays. No more memories to make there,” I told her through the tears.

And after we hung up, I thought about my dad for a few minutes and whether he understands what’s happening. How does it feel that the last day he spent in his house with his wife was on March 31st and as I write this now on September 7th, his wife has passed and his home is completely empty? There’s no opportunity for him to grieve in their home, to process what happened, to find closure.

I know we are making the right move with the house, but my heart aches so much for him. I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in his shoes, and it completely brings tears to my eyes.

I pray that he will understand that the difficult decisions we are making now are with his best interest in mind. 🙌

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