Yesterday, I wrote about completing thef tasks I needed to do after my father’s passing. That included rehoming a number of his things, including two bookshelves that have been in our family longer than me, the art prints that Mum and Dad loved to have on their walls, and personal things like his bed and his walker.
I don’t know how many times I told my siblings that I wasn’t sentimental about giving away things we didn’t need, or selling the things worth money, via buy/swap/sell groups on Facebook. There are people out there who needed them more than we did. That was mostly true.
I have kept Dad’s hat and his walking stick. I don’t need them, but they are so iconic of him in the last few years that they are deeply meaningful to me. Those are things that he held and wore most days. They identified him at any distance, and had become part of his identity to everyone who saw him when he was out and about.
These things are my souvenirs, tangible holders of memory, and valued physical symbols of my no-longer-present, much loved father dad.
WordyNerdBird 
This must all be so hard for you and your family. I know the feeling. My father and sisters are still sifting through mother’s things two years later. My brother-in-law and nephew still haven’t gotten through all of the belongings of my sister who passed in 2016; and my brother-in-law is recently engaged to someone new. Of course, in his case, it’s hard to give up those things when you still have a young child (who was only 13 when she passed); how do you decide what will still have meaning for him when he’s grown? You just don’t always know what you’ll miss if you give it away.
Very true. It simply boiled down to the fact that I couldn’t bear to give these two things away.