My house, Jeep and my mother and father urns (which I hope to be included after I'm gone) are the most valuable items that I own and the other stuff is sentimental. My youngest son has already been given the heads up about the house. My desire for the urns which I haven't expressed to any of my sons yet is that they let us visit with each family from time to time or one of them keeps us and the others can come and visit. My sisters might be interested in our grandmother's glassware but they may be gone too. My dream is that they would all get together and sell everything at the flea market since they know that it's my favorite thing to do. At least it would be a family affair in my mind right now. I miss them already.
I'm an organizer/personal assistant by profession and so I've been called upon by a client to deal with a parent's home after the parent has been moved to assisted living, or has passed away. One home in particular sticks in my memory. It was a large home in the expensive part of town (that's where all my work is) with 5 bedrooms and two stories, one bedroom for each of the children, now grown with families of their own, plus the master, along with a den, living room, formal dining room, large kitchen etc. The kids bedrooms looked as if the kids still lived there. It was as though each bedroom was both a shrine to the child, and maintained so that the child could return home and pick up right where they left off...closets full of clothes, bathroom completely set up, knick knacks and bits and pieces everywhere, looking completely like someone still used the room daily. EVERY BEDROOM!! It was shocking. The kids had all moved out years before, there were grandkids and a couple of great-grands. Though that was an extreme case, I have dealt with similar over the years, and it was always awful. Emotional of course, but there was resentment and anger too because I think in every case, my clients had been asking, pleading, suggesting, that their parent(s) deal with their homes that had become a mausoleum to their children, or were overflowing with items for a large family but just the elderly parents had been living their for years, etc. I have 5 kids...4 boys and a girl. After dealing with a few of those clients/home, I swore I wasn't going to do that to my own kids. Nope, not gonna happen. I mean, I'm organized, I hate clutter, I don't hoard, I'm fastidious with my belongings, but even so, I have collections, and I've kept sentimental things, and we all know how easy it is to accumulate stuff without even realizing it. So I started giving my kids the things that I knew they wanted, asking them about other stuff and getting rid of it if they didn't want it, asking them about stuff about which I thought they might be upset if I got rid of, downsizing in general. What I own now, apart from the items I use routinely, are the things that are special or important to me. In a couple of cases, one child or another has already claimed certain items and they'll get them when I'm gone. My daughter is very relieved about the way I'm approaching this, because she realizes that it will fall to her to deal with my stuff, and to not have to make those important decisions on her own.