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We asked readers to channel their inner Carolyn Hax and answer this question. Some of the best responses are below.

Dear Carolyn: My widowed father died last year and, since then, I’ve been trying to liquidate my parents’ home. I haven’t made significant progress on it for several reasons and was hoping for a little perspective.

While I’m still trying to figure out how to sell 1,000 $50 tchotchkes and learning that nobody wants even the nice china, my biggest obstacle is sifting through the personal effects. Every drawer or box I open has something they touched or loved or thought was important enough to keep. I have been trying to understand why these things had value to them, and it’s taking so much time and more of an emotional toll than I thought. With every letter or note or picture I throw away, I feel like I’m throwing away a piece of them. It’s like if I don’t keep enough evidence of their lives, they will disappear. I will scan the things I want to archive when I can winnow it down, but I’m a long way from that right now.

I’m also surprised by the intimacy of this process. I’m learning things about my parents that are challenging my understanding of who they were. Some if it isn’t pleasant, and I don’t think I have the capacity to manage this without some context.

I know there are professionals that liquidate estates, but that process seems too radical and dishonorable for me. There has to be an in-between.

Estate Matters: First, you’re not going to forget them; they will always live in your memory. Even if you tossed everything, you would still have the memories. Second, not everything they kept had value to them. They probably had a lot of clutter they didn’t take the time to sort through.

It would probably help if you gave some thought to where you want to end up as far as keeping your parents’ stuff. Do you, for instance, want two or three significant pieces of furniture, plus a handful of practical items that you can use and remember them by? Do you want a small box of letters and such that are just mementos? Accepting that you’re not going to keep everything will help.

Finally, you don’t say when last year he passed. Time will take the edge off the feeling of losing them again when you let go of their things, and the dissonance of their not being the idealized people you grieved. It’s okay to have a deal-with-later box for the hardest, most personal stuff. And the professionals can be a good solution for the things you just need to figure out how to sell, when you’re ready, without abandoning the closing of your parents’ household to anyone else. I’m sorry about your parents.

Estate Matters: I feel your pain, and you have my condolences! When my mom died in 2001, I couldn’t bring myself to empty her closets and drawers. Way too much emotional baggage. When my sister-in-law came to visit a few months later, I asked her to help me. She was great!

Nick Galifianakis

I’ve written an advice column at The Post since 1997. If you want advice, you can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/03/04/carolyn-hax-ask-question/" target=_blank>send me your questions here</a> (believe it or not, every submission gets read). If you don’t want to miss a column, you can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/carolyn-hax/?method=SURL&location=ART&initiative=CONTEXT" target=_blank>sign up for my daily newsletter</a>. I also do a live chat with readers every Friday: You can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-discussions/" target=_blank>submit a question in advance or join me live</a>. Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/haxadvice" target=_blank>Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/carolynhaxadvice/" target=_blank>Instagram</a>.

She packed everything up, then asked me to wait three days and think of one thing I would miss if she donated or trashed all the bags and boxes of stuff. After three days, I couldn’t, and she did. It’s been 23 years, and I still don’t miss anything specific. Except my mom — I miss her every single day.

Estate Matters: I am forever grateful to my two good friends who came over and helped me through the clearing of my father’s house, which had become the repository of “treasures” going back to great-grandparents on his and my mother’s sides. They were helpful in providing needed logical clarity on organizing the process and providing the emotional buoyancy throughout the day that kept me from becoming paralyzed from the emotional overload. If you are fortunate enough in friends and time, this might be an option, taken in manageable bites.

And don’t discount the value of the liquidators. Just because all these things were their treasures doesn’t mean you are disrespectful if you don’t make all of them yours as well. With my friends’ help, I was able to find what was important for me to keep, and the estate sale people unburdened me from the rest.

Estate Matters: It is always difficult to close the lives of those we love. With both your parents gone, it will be next to impossible to know or understand the context of the information you are finding out about them. It may be best to box up these items and slowly review them as you feel up to it. If even that would be too difficult for you to do, then keep any paperwork needed for tax purposes and discard the rest.

There are many things all of us will never know or understand about our parents. Maybe we need to hold close the best of our memories and release all other things from our grasp, for our own well-being.

Estate Matters: I found this experience to be difficult as well. First, I donated things like sheets and towels to a homeless shelter. Then, I offered kitchen things to young college students or couples starting out. I did the same with the furniture, too.

Finally, I came face-to-face with things that held so many memories, and I realized that I could not keep them all. Rather than dismantling my parents’ lives, I decided to start offering things to people who knew and loved them: a small statue went to one friend, a painting to another, Christmas items to people who wanted such decorations, etc.

People who loved my parents were delighted to have something of theirs. When I would visit those homes, I saw my parents’ presence there in these objects. Sharing my parents’ things helped me to spread their love to others, and that became a joy.

Every week, we ask readers to answer a question submitted to Carolyn Hax’s live chat or email. Read last week’s installment <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/04/24/carolyn-hax-ex-back-married/" target=_blank>here</a>. New questions are typically posted on Thursdays, with a Monday deadline for submissions. Responses are anonymous unless you choose to identify yourself and are edited for length and clarity.

Carolyn Hax started her Washington Post advice column in 1997, after five years on the Style desk and none as a therapist. The column includes cartoons by "relationship cartoonist" Nick Galifianakis — Carolyn's ex-husband — and appears in dozens of newspapers.

Carolyn Hax

George Washington University, BA in political science

Haben Kelati is an assistant editor in Advice.

Haben Kelati

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