Is it common to grieve for your dead parent again when you’re in the process of selling their home?

* Yes, of course, this is a major TRIGGER.
* Allow the tears and grief to come out. Invite it in.
* "Stuffing" feelings in will not support you to move forward - you need to allow this natural process to happen.
* Your psyche and body KNOWS what it needs. Honor what it tells you.

* And, yes, it is hard and difficult.
* You do not need to 'like' or 'want' to have these feelings although it is in your best interest in every way to allow them to 'speak' to you and flow out as they need to. By allowing you/r body and psyche to release as it needs to will give you the energy and space to do what you need to do which is selling her home.

Trust the process.
Trust yourself.
Trust your divinity or your spiritual knowingness (whatever this might mean to you).

* Our feelings 'talk' to us all the time.
* It is up to us to listen (which is a respect, if not appreciation for / of them) by listening and moving through them.

* No guilt here-if you are not ready to allow this process to happen, given yourself compassion for doing all that you are doing. It is important that you give yourself self-care as you can / need to - to keep going.

And, my heart goes out to you during this difficult time.

Gena / Touch Matters

Absolutely normal. I've been trying to do some clearing out and I completely freeze and stop. It feels like I am erasing my mom. All I've really done is create a mess in every room....and look around knowing she would be ticked off by the unorganized mess I made of her home.
Not sure how to get over the hump, so I'll just start and stop a while longer. Bless you, dear. It's hard to do what you're doing.

I did when we cleaned out mommas house to move her into assisted living. We had a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN that we lost due to the 2016 wildfires and I felt like I lost my dad all over again.

I don’t care how people express their grief. I am not saying that the OP has done this but many people who are grieving fall into vulnerable situations.

I truly understand that grief is different for everyone but I do get concerned about how so many people jump on the ‘psychic’ bandwagon hoping to connect with their loved ones.

There are too many scammers out there looking to make money off of other people’s grief. It’s very sad that people take advantage of vulnerable and grieving individuals.

Grief never ends. You will never truly get over the loss of a loved one. As long as you are still functioning (getting out of bed, eating, bathing, working, etc...), you are alright. "Normal" is quite a broad spectrum. How one person grieves, may not be the same as another at all. Please know that tears are cleansing & very beneficial. But, on the other hand, don't feel guilty if you do not cry. I have always experienced grief in unexpected moments, even decades later. If I see the hummingbirds at my feeders, I think of a certain grandmother. Or I have had moments where something exciting happened & for a quick second, I desired to call the person, then quickly realized they aren't here anymore. I am packing up my father's home, so he can live near my family. Every time we go to pack more things, I cry at the state of the home. And I cry remembering living a lifetime in that home. All of my family's memories, good and bad. (This was my childhood home & it is now in a shambles due to my young sibling) It is normal and perfectly healthy to grieve our losses.

Shortly after my two (local) sisters had helped our mom leave her house of 50 years, they began 'readying' it for rent (in an area with exorbitantly/ridiculously high rents) in order to fund her living in a nicer AL facility, close to her house. I flew down to remove everything I'd left/stored there in her garage, as I stayed with her in the house for three years before I left my unaffordable home state to a more affordable state, 1,400 miles away. Very traumatic, but I had no financial choice. Going back and seeing the house cleared of every trace of my mom, my family's furniture, art and memories, was terribly sad for me. I wonder if the experience put me on the path to begin mourning the final loss of my mom to this world?

Yes. (((HUGS)))

See if you can find a friend or relative to sit or chat with you as you go through this phase.

Take lots of pictures of the house when it is empty and up for sale. Whenever you are feeling blue, look at those pictures. You said that your Dad would be wanting to sell the house for your Mom's care. You are doing what your Dad would have wanted for your Mom. (((HUGS)))

Actually, you going to grieve the rest of your life. Someone will say something, you will see something that brings up a memory. Touch something you kept of Moms. It just won't hurt as much. My Mom lost her Mom at the age of nine and she was the baby. She grieved that loss probably till the day she died. Her Mom never knew her grandchildren. She missed weddings and Baptisms. I hear she was a lovely person.

Yes! You are feeling the loss of his presence as you do the final good bye - taking care of his things. It is OK to mourn the loss, but try to remember the good things so it tempers the grief.

InlandMeg: Yes, it absolutely can happen. I was living with and providing care for my mother in her home that also happened to be my childhood home. Mother passed away while I was there, I had to market and sell the house and also vacate it so that I could return to my state and my home. I was literally saying 'goodbye' to every tree and bush as my mother so loved her home - the home in which she lived 44 more years than my father, who died at age 50. My mother had 3/4 of a home mortgage loan to pay and she did it.

Grief Counseling will help you accept your reality and, perhaps, help you deal with your future.

I plan to meet up with my parents and hope they will be waiting for me when I arrive. Please listen to the old song, "I'll be seeing you." (And, have yourself a good therapeutic cry.)

Such a timely post for me as I'm experiencing the same. I never lived at mom's house, but it was where my parents retired and the place that I visited and loved them for the past 20 years. It's been 3 years since my dad passed, but I've been missing him more this year, possibly partly because The house will be ready to sell soon. Allow yourself to grieve, but also remember the happiness and keep that in your heart. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

I haven’t been able to read responses, your post was already too emotional for me. First I don’t think it’s just your father your grieving, you are “loosing” the house and grieving that loss, you are likely grieving the loss of your mom as well and going through family possessions, the memories always bring up good memories that can also be sad when associated with a loved one that has passed or a time gone by. I would urge you to go ahead and feel it, take the time to have a good cry when it comes over you instead of holding it back. We grieve the loss of loved ones, especially parents, siblings, spouses, children for ever. Over time that space that feels like a black hole fills back up with love but there is always a scar just like there is always a piece of them with you but that takes time and each journey is different, there is nothing wrong with feeling overwhelming sadness just as there is nothing wrong with feeling a warm smile when memories flood in. I have little special momentous of important people in my life and still stop to both experience the happiness they bring as well as the sadness that my great grandmother, for instance, is no longer with us, her house has been sold and my son never got the chance to experience the special things I did as a child. She has been gone for 40 years. I also grieve the loss of my mother at certain moments when it really hits me and she is still alive, it’s an ever evolving process life and we are both blessed and cursed with the memories it offers.

Be kind to yourself, let yourself grieve and don’t do it all alone. Find and allow people, family, friends to help you go through the house and experience the memories with you.

Yes! My parents moved in to their brand new home when they were expecting me in Dec of 1958. Dad died in Oct of 2019. Mom went into AL right after. The week before Dad died he walked from room to room telling the house goodbye and taling about hiw shirt life was, that it was just yesterday that he was buying new house with his beautiful pregnant wife. It was the only home I knew for 60 years. Selling it was necessary for moms care, but it seemed like a betrayal at the time. And it made it so final, could kind of think they weren't really gone when you could be there and see and smell their things. You will get through it. The pain is part of it. Blessings

Your present grief is certainly appropriate. I hope that you will seek grief support in your area; either 1:1 or groups. Hospitals, hospices, faith communities, the funeral services who served at the time of his death, some local health departments are all possible resources for you to access grief support groups or perhaps 1:1 support. Also, be sure you are seeing your primary care physician for overall health care; they may also be able to refer you for grief support.
Practice other good self care like staying hydrated, some form of physical exercise, prayer or meditation of your choice, healthy nutrition.......
Do seek grief support......
Peace

My Dad went in AL 14 years after my Mom died. Selling the house was like selling HER house. She was all over that house. Grieved again after 14 years. I think it’s natural.

Grief is very complicated. You have the loss of your loved one and then you have all the secondary losses that come as you must part with their possessions and you no longer have their presence for important decisions, Grief also comes in waves and you can have what’s called a “grief ambush” where you think you are going along fine and then something triggers a whole new wave. I found a lot of help going through GriefShare. There are chapters all over the country. They can give you good tools for coping with grief and loss.

It’s so hard. My mother REALLY wants my brother or myself to live in her house, which was also my grandparent’s house, after she is gone. She lives in it with my stepfather and they have a great life there. She is 81 and pretty healthy so hopefully she has many more years there. Problem is, I don’t really want to live in the house nor does my brother. Some people take comfort being surrounded by all those memories, and some people need to cut bait and start over. That would be me. We’ll see what happens when the time comes I guess.

Absolutely. ❤. Dad died in 2020, mom died in October. My sister and I have been so busy scrambling we haven't had a minute to grieve. Yesterday we listed the only home they lived in/the only home we ever lived in as kids in a neighborhood where all of us had lifelong friends. Turns out that will be the hardest piece of all of this. ❤

I completely relate to what you’ve written. My dad loved his home, did constant improvements, kept it clean and in perfect repair. I cleaned it out, mostly on my own, and prepared it for sale in the weeks after he died. My only advice is let those tears flow, they are healing. It’s a sad task, but one that I believe our parents would be proud of us for accomplishing. Side note, it also made me do a load of ongoing cleaning out at my own home as I’m more aware of paring it down for the next generation. I wish you healing and peace in this, knowing it’s so very hard

Of course you are grieving while preparing the house to sell....it was your home, it was their home and it is filled with memories of your lives together. Very understandable that this is emotional for you. If your mom needs the money to live, you have to do something. Have you thought about renting the house out and using that income to finance moms care? Then later on when emotions are not so high you can make an unhurried decision about the house. Just a suggestion. That would be one more thing to have to manage and it sounds like your plate is pretty full as it is.

I will tell you that as time moves on and you have other things to deal with and other decisions to make, the house will move down the list of importance. It is hard to see that now, but I promise you it will happen.

I'm sorry for everything you are going through. This time of life is hard....

I am in the process of doing the same thing. It was their home of 45+ years and my childhood home. I am so ready not to have to deal with all the bills, upkeep etc that comes with it and cleaning it out took 10 months because of borderline hoarding and I am exhausted but I know right before closing when I walk thru it for the last time I will be sad. It is sad to see it empty but at the same time a relief to get this huge task behind me. Mixed emotions for sure.

Sometimes I wish that I had something tangible from my parents home. Everything was destroyed in hurricane Katrina. Even the house itself was demolished. The house had nine feet of water and nothing was salvageable.

This was my childhood home. Sometimes, I drive past where I grew up and see a brand new house standing on the property. It affected me very deeply at first. I felt like my life there had been erased altogether. It’s kind of hard to explain.

Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, everyone grieves in their own way. Wishing you peace and healing in your journey of grieving for your parents.

Totally normal.. It's all part of letting go which can be very painful. The house is a trigger for the loss(es) of your parents as your mum is moving down that final road too.

Also the house is a loss in itself -and what it represents. I got rid of china, silver, crystal, old tablecloths and, hand embroidered pillow cases from generations back. These days no one wants them. It surely isn't easy. I am downsizing for myself now and letting go some of the few old family things I have kept and treasured. I don't want my kids to have a huge job when my time comes. My dd and grandkids have several old items they have chosen. My boys aren't interested.

(((((Hugs)))) to you. Expressing your grief is healthy and normal. You may find a grief group helpful if you continue to feel overwhelmed. When I lost my youngest son, a group helped me a lot.

Depends on your relationship with your parents. I did not get along with my parents so I celebrated. The happiest day of my life.

Yes. Perfectly normal. Tears at times still come and bittersweet memories for my Dad who died over 25 years ago. My mom died last May. Oddly, in addition to grief over her, it set off some grief for my Dad again, too. My parents enjoyed doing things around the house, decorating, gardening and tending to it. They kept things in great shape. That was harder for my Mom when she relocated and bought a house to be closer to us.
As far as being too overwhelmed to grieve, I think many can relate. I know I can. I was an only and the executrix so it has been a year of travelling to inter her, probate, income taxes, going through the house to ready for estate sale, then donating and tossing the remainder. It is harder to find homes for some of the older things that were once considered heirlooms. It was painful at times to go through the stuff. Other times I was just overwhelmed by it all and just wanted to be rid of it. Anyway, now the house is prepped and put on the market. It is a shell of itself now she is gone and it is emptied. I feel I am doing good just to still be here and not have succumbed to illness or completely lost my mind so far, as lots of other unexpected and stressful things have happened over the last year and a half as well.
I feel I will be able to grieve more fully for my Mom when the house sells and all these tasks are finished. I can just focus on the memories I have of her and how best to honor her and carry the good memories into the future. Tears are healing and I hope to be able to cry more than I have so far.
I am sorry for your loss, your grief and the illness of your Mom. I don't know your beliefs, but calling on Jesus has helped me through this, plus a few visits with a therapist and a "can-do" attitude from my spouse.

Everyone grieves in their own way. This is perfectly normal behavior. Wishing you peace during this difficult time in your life.

Grief doesn't come in one big wave. It's a lifetime of little heartbreaks and stirred-up memories.

I didn't grieve for my dad almost at all in the beginning, because overnight I became responsible for my mother's care, arranging his funeral, her nursing home placement and all their affairs, and that was a full-time job. (Theirs was the classic case of the caregiver dying first.)

For me, a terrible dread settled on me as the first anniversary of his death approached. (Very odd, as I don't "do" death anniversaries.) I think I feared for my mother's broken heart mostly, but as it turned out she had no concept of the date by then nor did she even remember Dad anymore, so that great heavy weight in my chest was all my own. Somehow when that date passed, I was OK from then on. It never happened after my mom died, because it was very much her time, and I'd been grieving her loss for years as dementia stripped away everything but the shell.

We sold their house last July a year after my mother's death, and after the Realtor's people did all the "lipstick on the pig" work to make it appealing to buyers, it was unrecognizable as my parents' house or the home I grew up in. Oddly, it didn't affect me in the slightest, and I haven't given the house another thought.

Absolutely. When my mother sold her house to move here with us, going through his den hit me hard. And he’d died a decade earlier.

Last time I drove past the house I lived in with my late husband I had to park because I started crying so hard I couldn’t drive. He’d been dead about twenty years.

Every now and then something reminds me of them and I’m thrown back into a moment of grief. Those events become fewer and now they’re more quickly replaced by a feeling of gratitude for the short times we had together.

You’re letting go of something full of memories. It’s emotionally overwhelming. I know you’re busy, but let the tears flow freely. It’s tough to hold all that back.

I made little photo albums of both houses.

What you need to do is let yourself have a good cry. I assume its where you grew up so lots of good memories. Now, someone else will fill the house with Memories.

My parents had an old farmhouse we were raised in. I was ready to walk away when I was offered enough money to pay the leans on it. New owner wanted it for the 7 acres. He built around the old house and tore the old one down. House does not resemble the old one in any way.