The value of stuff

Recently, I have been having a clear out. I am always being told I have too much stuff, and living at the in-laws for three months with practically no stuff I have realised that those people are right. I am bogged down by too much stuff that I don't need - I should just get ruthless and throw away. Plus I need the money for the big adventure and at this rate am not going to be able to afford rent next year anyway so if I don't have a place to live I definitely don't need a sofa to go in it!

Sorting my stuff out is easy. Much harder however has been sorting out my dads study. It has been left virtually untouched since the month he died in which I went through and found all the utilities bills etc for my mum and arranged them in folders after I change them into her name. It was, however, in great need of a good sort out and full of stuff - I may well have got my inability to throw stuff away inherited from my dad!

Whereas with my stuff it is just stuff, with my Dads it seems to be so much more than that. It is the only tangible evidence I have of his life, that he was ever here, and contains hidden information about him that he never got to tell me. Throwing anything away still seems wrong. I have now sorted the study into a neat and clean space for my mum, and removed all auction/ebay stuff to the spare room. The study was the one part of the house that was really 'dads space' and I feel now like I have erased it - put something different on top. I suppose that, while the study remained the same there was some faint irrational hope that one day I would just find him sitting in it like nothing happened. It is another stage in moving on and something that doesn't yet feel anything other than painful, like I am somehow losing more of him with every thing of his I give away, ever old bank statement I throw away, every piece of furniture I rearrange.

With the pain of this however, does come some good. Going through his stuff I have been able to feel closer to him again, just for a short time. This 'stuff' contains all I have left of his life - the life before me and after. I found his old school reports, and black and white photos of him as a child. I wish I could have seen some of this stuff while he was alive - to have him tell me the stories of the photos, the badges and all the other things. But since I found pretty much everything except that jar with a genie in I know that won't happen, so I have to take second best and have made a box of 'memories' with the bits and pieces I don't want to throw away. Best of all I found his wallet which still smells of him, and putting it in the box has given the whole box the same faint smell. So whenever I want to I can go and look in that box, smell him, see the stuff and remind myself that he's still here, in some small way.

So maybe theres more to stuff than we think - after all its really the only tangible thing we leave behind.