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Gramps house.com1/31/2024 My aunt Christine, who was in less of a hurry to clear out the home she was married in, now looks back and agrees that having a deadline made her more ruthless. Two: having a timeline made the cleaning more systematic, and less emotional. When my grandpa died, my dad and his brother, my uncle, were eager to get the house on the market, knowing that the selling process could take awhile. While the English variant sounds harsh, it’s really just the idea of slowly removing unnecessary things from ones home, in preparation for the inevitable. The term ‘death cleaning’ comes from the Swedish word döstädning dö meaning death, and städning meaning cleaning. ![]() Margareta Magnusson, who identifies as being “aged between eighty and one hundred,” wrote the book “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” to recount her own experience coming to terms with her impending death, and to provide others with the tools to do so themselves. While preparing for death is not the most glamorous topic, it benefits everyone involved. She says she always starts her class by saying, “Research says 100 per cent of us are going to die.” Explaining that if we can accept that, and move beyond the fear, we can prepare. Known as terror management theory, Arnold explains that humans are the only species that understand that they’re dying. Janet Arnold, a professor at Mount Royal University who teaches the course “Topics in Death and Dying,” explains the fear associated with death. Hearing about the intricacies of coming to terms with the end of life, planning for it, and knowing how a family might respond, are things I have a second-hand experience in. But that’s only because my mom is a palliative care nurse, and death is a frequent topic of conversation at our dinner table. I sometimes wonder whether the average person thinks much about death. Why ask for help when you can use a homemade extendo-arm to reach for a can of soup?įrom my dad’s first car, a 1972 Datsun 510, to the practical silver Toyota Corolla that my grandpa drove in his last few years, many different cars parked along his long driveway throughout the years. At 75 years old, he wheeled around the house with contraptions that he had skillfully designed to help him with everyday tasks. A practical man, one of my strongest memories of him was when he got his hip replaced, a time he took as an opportunity to brush up on his engineering skills. The accumulation in my grandpa’s house was not the result of him being emotionally connected to the things in his house. In a unique test of self-control, I found that rather than taking absolutely everything that could one day serve me, I was selective with my sticky note placement, choosing a gold-rimmed mid-century style mirror, along with a couple of other small things: an engraved silver serving tray, and a couple of photographs. When I first heard of the sticky note plan, I pictured an American Black Friday style battle, but in reality, it was a civil experience resulting in no major arguments. ![]() With 2,200 square feet and 40 years worth of stuff to go through, it was a project for the whole family, out of towners included. Walking amidst the memory-filled walls of my recently passed grandpa’s two-storey house, I fastened neon pink sticky notes to the things I wanted to claim. Roxanna lives in Vancouver.The thing about death is that no one tells you how to do it. ![]() ![]() She recently collaborated with Bill Richardson on a collection of poems for adults as well as on her first children’s book, The Alphabet Thief. She has won numerous awards, many of them National Magazine Awards, including Best Illustration (Gold). ROXANNA BIKADOROFF’s illustrations have been published internationally for more than twenty-five years. Bill lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. They include The Aunts Come Marching, illustrated by Cynthia Nugent, winner of the Time to Read Award After Hamelin, winner of the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award and The Alphabet Thief, illustrated by Roxanna Bikadoroff, named among New York Library's Best Books for Kids. BILL RICHARDSON, winner of Canada’s Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, and former radio host, has written several highly acclaimed books for children.
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