Things I’ve inherited from my mother

It’s a month now since my mum’s funeral, and in that time I have cleared her house. It meant staying in the house during the week after the funeral and every weekend after that. I didn’t mind: after living there during mum’s final illness it was feeling more like home than my own house. My safe space.

My sisters didn’t want to come back (in the end, one did and one didn’t). I always did. And I found that going through mum’s stuff made me feel close to her. Not the personal stuff that you’d imagine. The clutter.