Everyone grieves differently but I was wondering if it still makes any sense religiously and personally to constantly visit the gravesite of a loved-one even sometime after they passed. Maybe this is the way we let go of things gracefully.

My family and I have different beliefs and so, there are some things which they believe that I don’t. In their beliefs and their culture, it is common to visit the gravesite during special months or even every Thursday or Friday. My mom held on to this and it was her way to process her grief.

In what I believe, there is a verse in Psalm that supports the idea of visiting a gravesite. The idea was to contemplate our life, to reflect and question our time on earth. So, while respecting my mother’s belief, Thursday has always been that contemplative day and honestly, rather gloomy. These past few weeks, I’ve been letting it get the best of me yet this week, I decided to do something different.

“ Have I been giving my best in my life?” Am I going to sit idle and hope any problem will magically resolve itself?” What should I do with all the things that I’ve possessed and inherited now?”

Some of the biggest problems during the time when my father was still alive were our possessions. There’s something about the older generation and their clingingness about their stuff. I got into numerous heated debates about wanting to downsize, to donate and even to sell some of our things that we needed to let go. Eventually, I ran out of energy and despite verbalizing it all, I did nothing about it.

Then, when our family from every corner of the country came into our house for my father’s first memorial, I felt ashamed of its condition. They were entering a home filled with things, unclean and for lack of a better word, landfills.

They didn’t verbalize it but their eyes and how they glanced around, said it all. Some, like little kids that have no filters, they verbalized it. From there I know, I’ve got to do something about it.

It doesn’t mean that I am erasing a part of my family's existence…

When I proposed the idea of decluttering my father’s closet, my mom was resistant. She was trying to hold on to every bit of pieces that still had his lingering scent. I told her that we’d keep something of it, especially the pieces that are really meaningful for her and even for me. Even with my grandmother’s possession, it was the same. I told her that it doesn’t mean I am erasing a part of them. We’re still keeping their favorite things.

To show how serious I am with it, Instead of starting with my parent’s possession. I started with mine. You know what they say, lead by an example. I have a few laptops laying around that I don’t really use, including this one that accompanied me for a while now. It’s time for it to find a new owner.

We also have a mountain bike that we barely used, my father used it before and that needs to find its new owner. So finger crossed, everything will be sold sooner that I’d like.

Then, there’s some persistent problem that irked my mom a lot, our storage shoes area where the cats liked to roam around and wreak havoc. We put so many shoes there as you know, the more spaces we have the more we’d want to fill it with things. So, I cut the rack so that it only leaves two rather than six. Now, we only use and place things that we actually need and use. The cats are no longer lounging around the area as I have also moved into.

Sometimes, we really just have to do it.

After doing what I could, I felt a huge relief and our house now looks a lot more liveable than what it used to. Sometimes, we really just have to do it.

I spent around 2 hours this morning, sorting what needs to be sold, what needs to let go, what needs to be donated. When each item is properly sorted and soon to be gone. It feels like we’re allowing fresher air to get into our life.

It’s time to get some brightness. To close the chapters that needed to be closed, allowing new stories in a newer book.