You guys do know that not everybody is as sentimental as you are? I am not, it doesn't make me a bad guy, and it certainly helps with the clutter in the house. It isn't that I didn't care about my grandparents, or didn't love them, or that I had something against them, I loved them dearly, and cherish their memories, I just don't want their crap.
I remember when my mothers parents died, the rest of the family went nuts fighting over who got what, I witnessed them rip wounds in each other that will never heal, and it was over junk, a shirt that nobody would ever wear, a hideous pendant. Army Ribbons that none of them even know what were, they couldn't tell a good behaviour medal from a CMH. It was beyond disgusting, I lost respect for some of them for life. It was 25 years ago, and to this day some of them I wouldn't piss on if their wig was on fire. Maybe that has something to do with it.
If keeping relics from the past is the only way you can manage to maintain a link with the past, and your departed family members, then go ahead and keep the stuff (although you should at least display the stuff, not stick it in a box in the closet, as that isn't much different than selling it). I told my parents long ago that I didn't want anything from them when they died, no property, no effects, no money, nothing, and that if they left anything to me I would probably donate it to charity, or throw it in the dumpster, and I was dead serious.