Mum lived in a council house, so from the day after she died my sister and I were charged full rent on the house she had lived in since 1975. We are both fortunate in having mortgages to pay, so for financial reasons we had to clear Mum's home as quickly as possible. Because of the speed of this I decided to keep a pile of Mum's belongings, thinking at a later date I could be more selective. It turns out everything I kept fitted perfectly into the floral box I bought for the purpose.
It was traumatic clearing Mum's house immediately after her death. I gave myself a whole day over her bedroom, folding her knickers, tights, pop socks, carefully placing items into bags for recycling/the tip/charity. While the house still looked like her home I allowed myself an afternoon of watching TV and taking a short nap in her bed - quietly observing her view, the ceiling with its textured paint and cracks, the nets I hemmed years ago, the view to the small landing where we thundered about as children.
When we moved to the house I was four, and the first thing I did was to sit crossed legged in the corner of the living room and spread my Ladybird books out in front of me. On my last moments in the house, I sat again, cross-legged, 42 years later in the empty living room. Thanking the walls, I thought about the next family to inhabit this space, call this house home and enjoy the view of the forest from the living room window, The cycle continues, and I was glad that my family never had the money to profit from social housing, that another family without the means to own property would benefit from a sturdy, safe council house.
