The clearing of the house has become one of those jobs with an ever-receding finishing line. I doubt we all actually thought it could be done in a day, but that the three of us working for three days could still not say we were near to the end or ready for the garage sale is indicative of how endless the job has become.

At least now we are not going to discover new hoards. All the cupboards have been cleared or at least thorougly investigated. And our assessment of what constitutes rubbish has kept on expanding to include an ever-widening range of items. It simply amazes me that we completely filled one builders' skip with what we all considered rubbish, and already have plenty more set aside to refill the skip when it comes back empty.

The redundancy of our parents' possessions is truly astounding: eight ladders! approximately 20 unused notebooks! uncounted unused ties, shirts, tablecloths and sets of forks in their original packaging! multiple dinner services, cutlery services, mountains of tupperware despite the purge of this stuff I did surreptitiously a couple of years ago. Cameras of various vintages. Ornaments by the score, vases of all shapes, whole sets of things made from pewter, copper, china or wood. Dozens of towels and blankets, and so on and so on. The fact that all this material, of which I have only described a sample, has been packed into one house is extraordinary. It must have consumed literally weeks of time to have accomplished that.

Anyway, enough!

We have sent suitcases full of clothing off to a charity, and have moved a great deal of furniture into the garage. The remaining good furniture is being taken away to Rachel and Greg's houses mid-week. I already have the furniture I want, just a pair of wooden kitchen chairs, one of which I am using as I type.

And where are mum and dad in all this? They are becoming institutionalised to an even greater degree. Mum has now been dressed in the ubiquitous fleecy tracksuit pants of old age, under the impression, formed by the staff, that she was cold. Perhaps she was, but she has worn a dress or skirt through every winter of her life so far. Dad has reduced his requests to be taken away. He was given the wrong medicine a couple of weeks ago and, of all the medicines it could have been, it was zyprexa. It made a zombie of him for more than a day. It is from Rachel and Greg that I learn these things. I have not visited in about three weeks. This is not because I have no time, but that I never feel motivated to make the journey of about 40 minutes each way for a fleeting and uncomprehending fifteen minutes. Greg has continued to take dad for walks and outings, but on no occasion that I have seen him has he been in good shape to do this, or at least that is how I've felt.

We pick over their belongings, taking away favourite books, tools, kitchen utensils (such as our grandmother's breadboard and rolling pin). We throw away or sell the rest of their things at knock-down prices. I keep thinking it would be a disaster if they ever found out, but of course they cannot know this - they cannot be told and they would not know what it was all about even if they were. Dad might get anxious about it, but he already seems to have forgotten the cats, for he never asks about them, and they had been his main concern at when he left home.

Their lives really are fading away before our eyes.