My daughter died just after turning four years old. One of my biggest fears has been that she will be forgotten. But what does that fear actually mean? What exactly am I really scared of? And how do I combat the fear?
The idea that she will be forgotten is actually two separate fears.
The first fear is that friends and even family will stop thinking of her and, in essence, “forget her”.
In reality, this is the natural course of life. I have beloved relatives and dear friends who have passed and yet I rarely think of them. Does it mean they didn’t exist or have any less impact on my life? No. Nor does it mean I love them any less. What it does represent is that life goes on and current matters occupy our minds.
When family and friends stopped talking about my daughter it felt like they no longer thought of her. And though it’s been years since she died, my daily thoughts are still filled with memories and longing for her. In the first few years of my grief, this disconnect made me feel even more isolated from the “normal” world.
Our society tends to not want to talk about grief or the lingering pain of loss after the funeral is over. So I and many other grieving people go about our business and lead two lives. We have the “normal” life that goes about trying to live and act the way we did before they died. Then we have our “private” life where we still struggle to figure out how to work through the pain of grief. We must learn how to once again embrace the love, joy, and adventures that surround us.
The second part of my fear has to do with me and my memory.
With every passing day, and with all the new information coming in, memories of my daughter tend to get crowded out and forgotten.
All those everyday moments that I took for granted at the time have already faded into the abyss of memories lost to time. With my daughter no longer physically here, memories of her have become precious commodities. Those few memories of specific moments captured in time allow me to momentarily remember not just who she was, but remember life before the pain of her death forever changed me and my world.
It makes me sad that her older brothers say that they have very few specific memories of her. It makes me sadder that her baby brother never had the chance to meet her. He will have to rely on our stories and descriptions of her if he ever wants to get to know her.
To combat this fear, I have tried to write down as many memories as I can – even if they are mundane.
I keep them in a journal, and some I post to www.aliveinmemory.org to share them with others. This way I can refer back to them and share them with whoever is interested in reading them. Her brothers can read these memories and share them with their eventual families.
But I wonder, is my fear of forgetting my memories really necessary? Does it make me a bad mother that I can’t remember more moments I shared with her? Of course not. Does it mean my love for her will fade with the memories? Absolutely not.
I wish I could remember more specific memories of the time we shared with her. But I will try to be content knowing that I will never forget how much I love my daughter or how much she means to me. I will never forget her personality quirks, her vivid imagination, and endless creativity. And I will never forget how her life – and her death – have helped me grow tremendously in my understanding of this life and how best to live it.
This website was inspired by the memory of Margareta Sol Kubitz in hopes of helping others work through the pain of grief.
Thank you for this post. I struggle with the same thoughts and fears.
hello, to share and not to forget there is Elysway now. please share and check this out? http://www.elysway.com
This resonated so deeply with me.
Your writing was very peaceful and beautiful. I understand in a sense all that you are referring to and feeling. I lost my dear cousin in March 2017 , so 3 months ago. And I have thought about him everyday. But for this past week I feel as if I have not been thinking of him as much as I feel I should. I am scared that I will forget him. Because he died at age 25 , very young. And I myself am just 21 years old. I don’t want to forget him over the years. It is like one day when I am 40 years old , I am afraid I won’t know him anymore. I really do love him. And rest assure that your daughter is very much thought about, it is probably the fear of making you sad
Thank you for this amazing story, fear and memory. I lost my little niece aged 4 just on a year ago to meningitis. It was so fast and sudden we are all still swimming in an ocean of denial, shock and grief. All these fears consume us about forgetting and asking why. I googled forgetting for me personally and came across your story. Thank you! For posting, because I also just shared this with my beautiful sister! I am so glad that she may be able to use this site as a place to blog her hearts most deepest emotions. Perhaps it’s a small step for us all to start healing! Much love to you for your loss and for wording this beautiful post xxx
I forgot to mention that this was the perfect post because the first sign to me that I was lead to this specific message was that Skye and your daughter were the same age! And that the butterfly was and has become her symbol xx thank you!
My only child died June 3rd 2017. She as 22. I found her dead in bed. It is now going on 16 weeks. It seems like decades ago. I cry a lot and then at times it feels like she was never here. Sometimes I wonder if she s trying to make me forget about her so I don’t keep on crying. Or is this just part of the grieving process