My dad moved into assisted living last year after having some health issues and my sister and I are in the situation where we have to help him make decisions and take care of his affairs.

People who are both taking care of their adult parents and also have children they’re still caring for are called a part of the “Sandwich Generation.” These people are typically from ages 30 to 50, taking care of immediate family older than them and younger than them.

I remember my mid-20s and, until I had my child, those years were fairly carefree.

Now it seems my cares and responsibilities have skyrocketed.

Part of what my sister and I have had to do is clean out my parent’s home and prepare it for sale. Mom died unexpectedly in December 2016. At that time, she was my dad’s caregiver. After her passing, my sister and I did many things to try to allow Dad to do what he wanted, which was to live in his own home.

In December 2017, Dad became ill and received a terminal cancer diagnosis. The doctors said he had between two weeks and two months to live. We were all devastated except for Dad, who said, “I’ll prove them wrong.”

Sure enough, we moved him from home to hospice and assisted living and he got stronger and stronger. He gained weight. After having him checked over and rediagnosed after a few months, the doctors said Dad didn’t have cancer, but instead had pneumonia, which had cleared. He has since thrived in assisted living. However, due to other health problems, he won’t be returning home.

In order to help bolster Dad’s bank account, my sister, Dad and I decided it was in his best interests to sell his home.

For several months, my sister and I have been cleaning out our childhood home to prepare for the sale. We’ve finally got it to the stage where it just needs a final professional cleaning before we put it on the market.

It is difficult to go through the home where you grew up and decide which items should be kept, which items should be donated, which items should be sold and which items should be thrown away.

My mom was the type of person who liked to keep things in the family. We know if there was an item we wanted and my sister and I weren’t in conflict about it — we rarely have disagreements — that my mother would have wanted us to simply have it.

Both my sister and I have our own families and our own households. We don’t need or want many items.

Also, after my mother passed away, my sister and I completely cleaned the house and removed unnecessary items that would be in Dad’s way.

After having gone through that process, the household was boiled down to just necessities and keepsake. The keepsakes were heirloom furniture. My sister has a smaller square footage home, which she keeps very neat, and the only item she wanted was my mother’s pie safe. I settled on a display cabinet, buffet and the dining room set.

One would think there would have been enough items left over for an estate sale. After consulting with an auctioneer, his advice was to donate, give and throw items away. Family antiques and other keepsakes had already found a home and what remained was not of significant value.

In the last two weeks, I went through the process of doing the final house clean-up with my sister. Although things didn’t have monetary value, there were items of sentimental value remaining. We could not keep them all. I had to close my eyes as some things that couldn’t be donated went to the dumpster. That’s a hard process and I understand why people find it difficult to let things go.

I’ve followed the minimalist movement closely and I see great value in it. Having less “things” equals having less things to worry about. I think there’s value in that, although I think extreme minimalism is a pie-in-the-sky idea when you have a family.

Because my mom liked to keep things, she would have cringed at some of the things that couldn’t be given away. Of course, mom was the sort who would take one box of items to the church garage sale and return home with four boxes.

One thing I made sure I kept were all of the glass and crystal relish dishes. Most of our special-occasion meals included a relish dish with sliced dill pickles, bread-and-butter pickles and green-olives. Sneaking an olive or two from the table before the meal was one of my favorite things to do. Some of the relish dishes in my mom’s collection had belonged to my grandmother.

My wife and I have some “new-to-us” possessions to work into our collection of furniture, dishes and other odds and ends.

I hope some day my wife and I relieve ourselves of possessions we don’t need. One piece of advice I’ve heard is that if you have a possession you can’t sell and it doesn’t have great sentimental value, if you haven’t used it in 18 months, you don’t need it.

This will cut down on the things some day our sons will look at and say, “I wonder why mom and dad kept that?”

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.