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The ultimate motherly act: a Swedish death clean · The Front

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: This Mother's Day.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: You might find something unexpected in The Australian's weekend magazine.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: In a tender column, writer Charlotte ree explores the concept
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of Swedish death cleaning. If you haven't heard of Swedish
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: death cleaning, think Marie Kondo, but for the mortal, a
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: system of shedding the clutter before you die. In some
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: ways it's the ultimate motherly act, putting children first, even
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: in death. But on the other hand, it's confronting a
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: reminder of the hard truth that our loved ones won't
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: be around forever. It's Mother's Day weekend, which is a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: big deal in every family, and in Charlotte Reeve's family
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: it comes with a lot of emotion. Charlotte, you've been
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: cleaning with your mother?
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  Speaker 3: Why? I don't think I would say I've been cleaning
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: with her per se. My mom is like, doesn't have
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: a housewife's bone in her body. But she rang me
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  Speaker 3: the other day and she said she's been doing a
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  Speaker 3: Swedish death clean.
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  Speaker 1: Now what is that for people?
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  Speaker 2: Well, for people that don't know.
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  Speaker 3: You begin preparing for your death in the sense that
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  Speaker 3: you're envisaging that you're someone that's coming into tidy up
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: your belongings afterwards. And I suppose for Mom that's occurring
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: because she was diagnosed with breast catcer last year in June,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: and mortality is at the front of her mind despite
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: everyone's reassurances, and now she's thinking about what's going to
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  Speaker 3: be left when she's not here anymore.
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  Speaker 1: Incredible gift to do a Swedish death clean, isn't it.
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  Speaker 1: It's really thinking about what your children might face when
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: they're deep in grief and coming into the home after
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you've passed away, and it's hard to throw things away.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I would have described my mom as an absolute hoarder.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: She would say she's a collector. She would have so.
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  Speaker 3: Much furniture that had been inherited from my grandparents or
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  Speaker 3: great grandparents, records and books and nick knacks and all
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: these sort of absurd items that she has collected over
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: the years. But what I didn't realize that she'd held
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: onto was so many letters and photographs and all of
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: these pieces of time.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: You found some letters from your father, tell us about those.
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  Speaker 3: So my mom was twenty one when she felt pregnant
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  Speaker 3: with me, and my dad had said to me once
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  Speaker 3: that he had written my mum a Dear John letter
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  Speaker 3: at the same time that my mom had sent him
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  Speaker 3: a fax saying that there was a matter of growing
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: concern that she needed to discuss with him. And I'm
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: the matter of growing concern.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And they were boyfriend and girlfriends.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: They were boyfriend and girlfriend.
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  Speaker 3: They met at UNI in Armadale, and I think they
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: had a love affair. I definitely think from stories and
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: now from reading the letters that my mum was more
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: in love with him and more inemored with him than
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: he was with her. My mom had had my brother
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: when she was eighteen, and his dad said, see you later.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I suppose we have a pattern. Both of us are
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: falling for men that are a bit crappy. But Mum
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: had sort of said to me that she was cleaning,
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  Speaker 3: and I kept thinking, yeah, whatever, I'm still going to
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: get there and we're still going to be pushing the
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: cupboards closed. But there were just these really orderly plastic
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: boxes tubs basically with labels that said Charlotte Pictures and
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Charlotte Letters. And she was so excited to show me.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I think she felt so proud of herself that, you know,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: my whole life, I've been trying to organize her, which
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: is a possible task, and here she was saying, look,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I'm organized, you know.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: But it was not.
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  Speaker 3: Something for me to be excited about because I suppose
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: she's doing it wanting to prepare me for her death
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: in some ways. And it is a gift, as you said,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: because here, really clearly labeled on a platter, was.
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  Speaker 2: My life, her history with her.
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  Speaker 1: And she's had these, of course all along. Yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: you haven't seen them until now. However, had she actively
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: concealed them? Do you think thinking Charlotte will look at
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  Speaker 1: these after I've gone or not? You just hadn't found them,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: were buried under piles of coat hangers, And I.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Honestly think, you know, having just moved and finding love
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: letters and mementos and post it notes with scribbles of
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: just mundane daily things between my ex partner and I,
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  Speaker 3: it's so triggering and it really immediately.
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  Speaker 2: Transports you back to that time.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think she'd hidden them, nor had she forgotten
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  Speaker 3: about them. It's sort of one of those things you
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: can't face until you're ready to face. And even the
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: other day I had her on the phone and I said,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: you sound a little flat today, and she said, oh,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: this cleanings really hard because you can just go down
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: a complete rabbit warren of a time and a place
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  Speaker 3: and a history. And I think that's what's been really
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: fascinating about it is women that are in their fifties
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  Speaker 3: or sixties now thinking about that love, not the one
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: that got away, but the one that got under their skin.
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  Speaker 3: And so for me to read it, you know, initially,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: when she wanted me to open the tub with her,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I couldn't read them. I was surprised to see them there.
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  Speaker 3: There was no sort of wing that they were there.
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  Speaker 3: But it felt almost too intimate, and it felt almost
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: too expository in some ways because my heart just really
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: really ached for her.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that she put the label Charlotte letters on
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  Speaker 1: that box because she thinks of them as yours.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, she does.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't have a relationship with my dad really.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: My pa, my stepdad, came into my life when I
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: was two, and he, for all intensive.
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  Speaker 2: Purposes, is my dad.
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  Speaker 3: My taste in music, in food, in humor, it's all
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  Speaker 3: par And I think for Maum it was her sort
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: of getting me to know my dad a little bit more,
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  Speaker 3: I suppose, but also you know, I'm thirty five, so
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I was born in ninety one. There's things in the
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  Speaker 3: letters like save your money, don't call me until Sunday
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  Speaker 3: when it's cheaper, And I said to him, I'm like,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: what do you mean why would calls cheaper on a Sunday?
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  Speaker 3: Or you know that they would write a letter and
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: then a call would happen in between, or a facts,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: even tiewriters were used as well as handwriting. It's like
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: an archive, but it's an archive of me, not the conception,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: so to speak, but the beginnings of my story. How
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: he was ready to disown the fact that he was
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: my father, except for when he saw me and saw
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: the likeness. You know, just really brutal things that you think,
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  Speaker 3: why would you write that to someone, let alone when
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: they're pregnant or when you who were supposed to have
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: loved them.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: He was obviously unusually either self aware or articulate for
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a early twenties man time. Yeah, this is a culture Australia,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: particularly in the country where you wouldn't expect many twenty
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: old year old boys to be able to express themselves
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: even when he was letting her down.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: He's extremely intelligent.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I think the difference too, is that he was from
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: the city and mum was from the country. And Mum
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: told me about this story when they first started dating.
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  Speaker 3: My grandparents had a place on Abercombie Street in Sydney
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  Speaker 3: and they were all sitting around and my granddad brought
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: out croissants and my mum had never seen one before,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: and my Papa showed her how to eat one. You know,
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  Speaker 3: that was such a stark difference between the two families
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: in terms of not only their you know, experiences and travel.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: You know, my grandparents hadn't been overseas, still haven't been overseas.
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  Speaker 3: My mum's been overseas once, whereas my dad's family had
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: traveled enormous amounts.
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  Speaker 2: But also love.
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  Speaker 3: My dad's family weren't particularly demonstrative, whereas.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: My mum's family were. And the physicality too.
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  Speaker 3: My dad's family were very sort of slim and trim
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: and proper, and my Mum's all these voluptuous women that
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: you could just envelop yourself in.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up when you find yourself becoming your mother. One
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  Speaker 1: of the things about all the stuff that we acquire
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: over our lives is that it is a time capsule
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  Speaker 1: who it preserves a moment, and on Mother's Day we
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: think about our mothers as they are now or as
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: they were the last time we saw them. We don't
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: often think about them at twenty one or at twenty
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: five or twenty eight. What's it made you think about
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  Speaker 1: in terms of as you think about maybe becoming another one? Now,
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  Speaker 1: what will you keep? Will you be hoarding all the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: cars and all the scan photos?
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's such a great question, and it's so
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: funny because I think we think as adults we're not
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: going to mimic the patterns or behaviors of our parents,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: And then the older we get, we think, oh my goodness,
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  Speaker 3: I am so much like my mom. I hear my
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: voice sometimes, you know, back on a voice or to
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: a video, and I have to do a double tape
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: because I think it's my mom's voice.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I heard myself saying the phrase the other day, she's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the cat's mom, which I really think my mom would say.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Stupid thing to say. My mom used to say it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, generations of women I think in our family
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: have said it. My son had called his sister she
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: she got a chocolate biscuit.
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  Speaker 2: She's the cat's mother. I know that everyone in.
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  Speaker 1: The family was like, what, but those it's deep. They're
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in your sort of sense memory, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you embody them in a lot of ways.
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  Speaker 3: You don't realize how much of a sponge you are
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: until bits of your life show it. And I think
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: the main thing that they showed me is that we
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: think language has evolved so much over time, and the
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: language of heartbreak has not. There were lines from my
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: dad to my mum that my ex had written to
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: me that were verbatim and I hear I was going, oh,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: you know, and it's that whole.
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  Speaker 2: I hope we can be friends again.
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  Speaker 3: The cliche, the cliches, And I think it just made
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: me so in awe of my mum for being a
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  Speaker 3: single mum at that time in the eighties and the nineties,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: for being so dogged in her ambition and her dedication
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: to her career, and also struggling with mental health. She
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: has bipolar disorder, And I just look at her and
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: I think she's the most resilient, most extraordinary person I
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: have ever met. The fact she's my mum is just
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: unbelievable to even me sometimes, and I guess if I
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: can just be one bit like her, I would be
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  Speaker 3: so lucky.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Charlotte Read is a writer for The Australian's Weekend magazine.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Check out her work anytime in the weekend edition of
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: The Australian or online by searching Weekend Australian Magazine. This
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: episode of The Front was hosted by me Claire Harvey
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and produced by Jasper League. Our team also includes Kristin Amiot,
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  Speaker 1: Lead Sammerglue, Tiffany Dimac and Joshua Burton.