Preparing to leave the home we’ve lived in for 28 years is incredibly hard. This house has never been just a building to me. It’s where our family grew, where ordinary days quietly unfolded, where love was lived out in countless small ways, and where grief found a place to rest. Even now, I still feel my son’s presence here in the rooms, in the memories, and in the quiet moments when his absence feels close.
Every room holds a memory. Every cupboard, every drawer, every corner carries part of our story. As I pack boxes and sort through belongings, I am not just organising possessions. I am touching pieces of a life we once lived together. I am revisiting moments of joy, hope, struggle, and heartbreak. Moving home has become an emotional journey through time.
Not long after Matthew died, we shared many of his belongings with others. His cricket kit went to the club where his love of sport began. His football boots were passed on. His bike went to a cousin. His golf clubs to one of his best friends. Some of his clothes became memory bears and cushions. Letting go was never easy, but it was done with care and love. It was our way of allowing his life to continue touching others.
Before loss, our loved one’s belongings are simply objects, but after loss, those same things become sacred. We cling to them because we fear forgetting. Because we don’t want our loved ones to fade. Because letting go feels like losing them all over again. But I am learning that love does not live in walls or in bricks and mortar, or their belongings. It lives in memory, in values, in the way we speak their name, and in how they continue to shape who we are.
When this house is finally empty, it will return to being just bricks and mortar. Another family will fill it with their own laughter, arguments, celebrations, and ordinary days. They will never know the depth of love and loss that once lived here. And that is okay. This house has done its work for us. It held our family. It held our joy and our sorrow. It held Matthew’s life.
As I close this chapter, I know I’m not leaving him behind. I am carrying him with me. Into a new home. Into a new season. Into a different version of life. Not in furniture or walls, but in my heart. Because home was never just this house.
Home was the love we shared inside it.
And that love goes with us, wherever we go.
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