Slowly, we have gone round and round and finally decided on what to do with the house that mum and dad lived in for over 20 years.

The answer is: what we originally thought, we shall rent it out to tenants after first getting it renovated to an acceptable standard. Consequently, Greg, Rachel and I all gathered there at 1 pm on Sunday, armed with rubber gloves and some fresh milk. We had the goal of going through the house and performing a kind of triage on everything. Each item would be consigned to one of three groups:
  1. items to keep
  2. items to sell
  3. items to throw away
Starting seemed to be the hardest part. We talked about what we might do, where we might put things, without actually doing anything. Eventually I picked up a worn and faded cushion.
'Do either of you want this?' I asked. Both Greg and Rachel said they didn't.
'Will anyone buy it? No, they agreed.
'So, it's rubbish,' I declared, slinging it out the doorway and across the lawn to the skip that had been placed in the drive. And so we started.

The enormity of the job became clear very early on. Behind every object was another. When chests were moved, they revealed a sediment of objects that had fallen down the back of their drawers. There were scatterings of tissues and half-empty food packets, banana skins and clothing in unexpected places. As we pulled furniture away from the wall the dust rose in a cloud.

Floor space disappeared rapidly. The lounge became a staging area for items we will sell. Very soon we could hardly move through it. The dining table, fully extended, was nowhere big enough to hold the hundreds of ornaments that mum had collected over the years.

But among all this unwanted furniture and kitsch, we found some gems: mum's Kodak camera, which travelled with us for many miles and many years; dad's masonic medals (which kept turning up in odd places), the colourful blanket that mum crocheted and draped over us when we were small and sick; my laundry bag from boarding school days, a chest of drawers which, upon inspection, looks very much as if it was made by our grandfather.

We made great progress, but not enough. Next Saturday we must reassemble and finish the job and, then, some time after that, return to oversee the garage sale that will liquidate a lifetime's material accumulation.

I found the day enjoyable. It was good to work together as we did. It was a task that I had been itching to do for many years (and which really should have been done many years ago, by mum and dad themselves). And there was a sense that our endless evolving problems were finally refining themselves into a clear and contained shape: mum and dad's health.

All other issues are now under our control.