The ultimate motherly act: a Swedish death clean

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]It's Mother's Day weekend, which is a big deal in every family. And in Charlotte Rees' family, it comes with a lot of emotion. Charlotte, you've been cleaning with your mother. Why? I don't think I would say I've been cleaning with her, per se. My mom is like that doesn't have a a housewife's bone in her body.

[00:00:17]Um but she rang me the other day and she said she's been doing a Swedish death clean.

[00:00:23]Um And what is that for people that don't know?

[00:00:24]>> Well, people that don't know, essentially the best way to describe it is that you begin preparing for your death prematurely in the sense that you're envisaging that you're with someone that's coming in to tidy up your belongings afterwards.

[00:00:36]>> [snorts] >> And I suppose for mom, um that's occurring because she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year in June. And mortality is at the front of her mind.

[00:00:46]And you know, I think she is convinced that she's going to die despite everyone's reassurances and and obviously not wanting that to happen.

[00:00:55]But now she's thinking about what's going to be left when when she's not here anymore. It's an incredible gift to do a Swedish death clean, isn't it? It's really thinking about what your children might face when they're deep in grief and coming into the home after you've passed away. And it's hard to throw things away. I mean, I would have described my mom as an absolute hoarder.

[00:01:18]She would say she's a collector. It's one of those things where, you know, she would have so much [snorts] furniture that had been inherited from my grandparents or great-grandparents, records and books and you know, all of the sorts of things or knickknacks and all these sort of absurd items that she has collected over the years. But what I didn't realize that she'd held on to was so much, you know, so many letters and photographs and all of these pieces of time.

[00:01:47]>> You found some letters from your father.

[00:01:49]Tell us about those. So, my mom was 21 when she fell pregnant with me. Um and my dad had said to me once that he had written my mom a Dear John letter uh, at the same time that my mom had sent him a fax saying that there was a matter of growing concern >> [snorts] >> that she needed to discuss with him. And I'm the matter of [laughter] growing concern. And they were boyfriend and girlfriend at the >> boyfriend and girlfriend. They met at uni, um, in Armidale. And I think they they had a a love affair. I definitely think from stories and now from reading the letters that my mom was more in love with him and more enamored with him than than [snorts] he was with her. And it was the second time my mom had had my brother when she was 18. And she fell pregnant with him and his dad said, "See you later." Um, I suppose we have a pattern of both of us are falling for >> [laughter] >> that are a bit crappy. Um, but you know, there were there were these boxes. And mom had sort of said to me that she was cleaning and I and I did believe her, but I didn't believe her. I kept thinking, "Yeah, whatever. I'm still going to get there and we're still going to be pushing the cupboards closed." But there were just these really orderly plastic, um, boxes, tubs basically, with labels that said Charlotte pictures and Charlotte letters. And she was so excited to show me. I think she felt so proud of herself that, you know, my whole life I've been trying to organize her, which is an impossible task. And here she was saying, "Look, I'm organized, you know." And, um, but it it was not something to for me to be excited about because I suppose she's doing it wanting to prepare me for her death in some ways. And it is a gift as you said because, you know, for me it was an insurmountable task to think about how I could possibly clear out a garage that was stuffed full of items or think about where to start. And yet here really clearly labeled as sort of, you know, um, on a platter was my life, my my history with her. And she's had these, of course, all all along.

[00:03:50]>> Yeah. But you haven't seen them until now.

[00:03:52]>> Never. Had she actively concealed them, do you think, thinking Charlotte will look at these after I've gone, or or not? You just hadn't found They were buried under piles of coat hangers and >> I honestly think, you know, having just moved and and finding love letters and um mementos and post-it notes with scribbles of of just mundane daily things between my ex-partner and I, >> [snorts] >> it's so triggering and it's it really immediately transports you back to that time. I don't think she'd hidden them, or nor had she forgotten about them.

[00:04:26]Um it's sort of one of those things you can't face until you're ready to face.

[00:04:29]And even the other day, I had her on the phone and I said, "You sound a little flat today." And she said, "Oh, this cleaning's really hard." Because you you can just go down a complete rabbit warren of of a time and a place and a history. And I think that's what's been really fascinating about it and subsequent conversations I've had with people since is women um that are in, you know, their 50s or 60s now thinking about that love, not the one that got away, but the one that got under their skin, and what their life could be like, and where they might be now. And so, for me to read it, you know, initially when she wanted me to open the tub with her, I couldn't read them. I was surprised to see them there.

[00:05:11]There was no sort of warning that they were there. But it felt almost too intimate, and it felt almost too expository in some ways, because of my heart just really really ached for her.

[00:05:23]It's interesting that she put the label Charlotte letters on that box, because she thinks of them as yours.

[00:05:30]>> Yeah, she does.

[00:05:31]I think for, you know, I don't um have a relationship with my dad really. Um my pa, my stepdad, came into my life when I was two, and he, for all intensive purposes, is my dad. My taste in music, in food, in humor, it's all pa. And I think from from Mama was her sort of getting me to know my dad a little bit more, I suppose.

[00:05:54]Um but also, you know, there's such a I'm 35, so I was born in '91. There's things [snorts] in the letters like save your money, don't call me until Sunday when it's cheaper. And I said to Mom, like, "What do you mean? Why were calls cheaper on a Sunday?" Or, you know, that they would write a letter and then a call would happen in between or a fax even. Um typewriters um were used as well as handwriting.

[00:06:17]It's like a an archive almost, but it's an archive of me, like the um not the conception so to speak, but the beginnings of my story and, you know, how he talks about um his gratitude towards her for being generous when he came for the christening and how kind my mom and my grandparents [snorts] were to him.

[00:06:39]Um but also lines like he was ready to disown the fact that he was my father except for when he saw me and saw the likeness. You [snorts] know, just really brutal things that you think, "Why would you write that to someone, you know, let alone when they're pregnant or when they're, you know, you you were supposed to have loved them?" He was obviously unusually either self-aware or articulate for a 20 early 20s man at that time.

[00:07:06]This is a culture Australia, particularly in the country where you wouldn't expect many 20 20-odd year old boys to be saying things to be able to express themselves so much even when they're he was letting her down. He's extremely intelligent. I think the difference too is that he was from the city and Mom was from the country. And Mom told me about this story when they first started dating and she went my grandparents had a place on Abercrombie Street in Sydney and it became like a generational sort of family home and they were all sitting around and my granddad brought out croissants and my mom had never seen one before and my papa showed her how to eat one. You know, there was such a stark difference between the two families in terms of um not only their, you know, experiences and travel, um you know, my grandparents hadn't been overseas, still haven't been overseas. Um my mom's been overseas once, whereas my dad's family had traveled enormous amounts. Um but also love. My dad's family weren't particularly demonstrative, whereas my mom's family were. And the physicality too, my dad's family were very sort of slim and trim and and proper and and my mom's were these voluptuous women that you could just envelop yourself in. One of the things about all the stuff that we acquire over our lives is that it it is a time capsule. It preserves a moment. And on Mother's Day, I think we we think about our mothers as they are now or as they were the last time we saw them.

[00:08:32]But we we don't often think about them at 21 or at 25 or 28. That's something that maybe comes, you know, I think as you sort of start having children. You think, oh, she was going through this too and what was it like and what can I remember?

[00:08:48]What's it made you think about in terms of um you know, as you think about maybe becoming a mother one day? What will you keep? Will you be hoarding all the cards and all the scans, photos, and I mean, that's such a great question. And it's so funny because I think we think as adults that we're not going to mimic the patterns or behaviors of our parents.

[00:09:07]And then the older we get, we think, oh my goodness, I'm so much like my mom.

[00:09:12]And I I hear my voice sometimes, you know, back on a on a voice or a video and I I have to do a double take because I think it's my mom's voice. I heard myself saying a phrase the other day, she's the cat's mother. [laughter] That's something my mom would say.

[00:09:26]Stupid thing to say. My mom used to say it. My son had called his sister she.

[00:09:30]She got a chocolate biscuit. She's the cat's mother.

[00:09:34]And everyone in the family was like, "What?" But, those the it's deep there in your sort of sense memory, isn't it?

[00:09:41]Yeah, it is.

[00:09:43]Um you Yeah, you embody them in a lot of ways. You don't realize how much of a sponge you are until bits of your life show it. And I think the main thing that they showed me is that we think language has evolved so much over time.

[00:09:58]>> [snorts] >> And the language of heartbreak has not.

[00:10:00]There were lines from my dad to my mom that my ex had written to me that was a bated and I hear I was going, >> [gasps] >> you know, and it's that whole, I hope we can be friends again.

[00:10:13]Um you know The cliches. The cliches and they repeat time after time and I think it just made me so in awe of my mom for being a single mom at that time in the '80s and the '90s for being so dogged in her ambition and her her dedication to her career and also struggling with mental health throughout that period, you know, she has um bipolar disorder and I just look at her and I think she's the most resilient, most extraordinary person I have ever met. The fact she's my mom is just unbelievable to even me sometimes and I guess if I can just be one bit like her, I would be so lucky.