(Stockholm) “I do this death cleanse several times a week and it calms me down”: in her pretty apartment in central Stockholm, Lena Sundgren, 84, clears her library by candlelight for the day where she will no longer be there.
The old lady started this big household about ten years ago, and everything will go through: dishes, books, clothes …
“This feeling when I get rid of it is a relief,” she told AFP, before grabbing a stack of books on botany, which she put aside.
This sorting – called “döstadning” in Swedish – is an ancient practice in the Scandinavian country, popular with the elderly and theorized in 2017 by an 86-year-old author, Margareta Magnusson.
“It is about taking care of all the junk that we are going to leave behind,” she explains in an interview with AFP.
“Going about your own business can bring back good memories and if it doesn’t, get rid of it!” She pleads.
For her daughter Jane, 53, the practice is above all a relief for the relatives of the deceased: “All those who have an active life would like to have as little business as possible to manage when their parents are no longer there”.
“I am very grateful to her for the work she has already done and I am happy that the movement is taking place all over the world,” she enthuses.
“We don’t live forever”
Margareta Magnusson’s work, entitled The delicate Swedish art of the household of death, has been translated into many languages. It even acquired the status of “best seller” by the New York Times and today brings together an active community of 18,000 people on Facebook.
An American blogger, who applies her precepts, has more than 3 million views in an online video.
In Sweden, the practice is rooted in an ancient domestic tradition.
“Forty years ago, a very elderly neighbor told me that she was going to do this household of death,” recalls Kristina Adolphson, a former actress, also a follower of döstadning.
“It helps me realize that we don’t live forever,” she analyzes.
For Margareta Magnusson, it is above all a Swedish cultural peculiarity that explains the phenomenon: “Death is feared all over the world, in Sweden too of course. But we are talking about it! “
In her wardrobe, there are only a few clothes left. His living room is still populated with figurines of animals and trolls.
“I have done the death cleanse many times, but I still have a lot of things left… We never quite finish it,” she admits.