The Fear of Forgetting a Loved One

The Fear of Forgetting a Loved One

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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.

Navigating the Ebb and Flow of Grief

Navigating the Ebb and Flow of Grief

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Years have passed since my daughter’s death, and I thought it would be easier than this.

The intense grief during those early days and months made it feel like I couldn’t survive this loss. Yet I saw people in support groups who’d lost loved ones years before who seemed okay. They looked almost “normal” again and told me it wouldn’t always be like this. “You learn to live with the pain, and it will lessen over time.”

They said I’d  eventually find happiness again, and I’d create a “new normal.”

And they were right.

It’s been years of hard work to soften my grief. Counselors and support groups were a huge help for me. I looked for ways to express my pain so it wouldn’t consume me. I volunteered my time with The Compassionate Friends and created my own grief support website.

Along the way, I’ve given myself permission to smile once more and allowed joy to enter my heart again.  I have consciously tried to focus my energies on remembering my daughter’s life rather than only looking at the pain her death has brought.

And yet grief remains a constant part of my life.

Grief is fickle, unpredictable, and indifferent to whatever mood I’m in.

Most days my grief lies dormant under the activities of everyday life. Little triggers continually remind me its there. Triggers like a sad news story on the TV or a girl at the park who reminds me of my daughter. But I can go about my regular routines with no interruptions.

Other times, the triggers are bigger. In those cases, the grief bubbles up and takes over my mood. Tears well up behind my eyes, ready to release at the first opportunity. My patience seems to evaporate and everyday tasks become cumbersome, meaningless, and even difficult. Usually the bursts of grief from larger triggers only last a few hours or at most a few days.

But sometimes it lingers and grows.

Years after her death, I didn’t expect to encounter triggers that make me feel like a return to the debilitating early days of grief.

Feelings of sadness, pain, lethargy, and dis-interest in things I normally enjoy. Going to work becomes a struggle. Even taking care of my kids feels like a burden.

I know these periods require extra attention and care. I navigate through them best I can, asking for support along the way. I just wonder if these episodes will ease over time, or if I should just expect them to become a permanent fixture of my “new normal” life?

If the death of my daughter has taught me anything – and it has taught me A LOT – it’s that we have more inner strength than we can ever imagine. And with time, attention, and support, we can navigate through just about anything life might throw at us.

The Caterpillar

The Caterpillar

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It was a morning just like any other. My daughter and I were getting ready for daycare and work. We were doing the regular things we did to get out the door and into the car. As we would leave our shoes outside in the atrium of our house, I opened the door and Margareta waited as I got her Dora the Explorer shoes to put on. After I put them on, she complained that the toes hurt on one of her feet. So I took the shoe off, and stuck my fingers in to see if anything was inside.

When my fingers reached the toe, it was cold and wet and squishy. My first reaction was to get my hand out as quick as possible. As I looked at my fingers when they came out of the shoe, they had greenish goo on them. What the heck was IN there, I thought? I hesitatingly reached back in again to try to get out whatever it was.

Sadly, when I pulled it out, it turned out that a friendly black fuzzy caterpillar had thought that Margareta’s Dora shoe was a nice, warm refuge for the night. Margareta, who loved animals, was very sad that the caterpillar had gotten squished to death. We buried the caterpillar, cleaned her shoe, and then got going once again.

It was probably about a week before Margareta stopped asking me to check her shoes for caterpillars every time we put them on.

Submitted by Maria Kubitz in loving memory of Margareta Kubitz.

The Princess

The Princess

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On the surface, our daughter, Margareta, appeared to be a tom-boy. With three older brothers to keep up with, she was as rough and tumble as they come, and never afraid of getting down and dirty. Her legs and knees would rarely – if ever – be free of scrapes and bruises from all the climbing and adventures with the boys. While at the baseball and soccer games of her brothers, she most often played with the younger brothers that were also on the sidelines.

With that said, Margareta never lost sight of the fact that she was a girl. While her brothers rarely, if ever, cared what clothes they had on, Margareta definitely had a unique style and a love of clothes that she somehow inherited from her dad’s side of the family. She changed outfits many times each day. She loved dresses, clothing with sparkles, pinks and purples, bows and frills. She watched princess movies and wanted to wear makeup. She was impossible to categorize. Neither “tom-boy” or “girly-girl” — she was whatever suited her in each moment.

At three, she was invited to the birthday party of one of the few girls she knew. According to the invitation, it was a princess party! You should have seen the sparkle in her eyes when she heard this. We ran to her closet to see what dresses could be appropriate for a princess. There were a few to choose from, but the decision was easy: a maroon dress with a tulle skirt and a gold knit cardigan top. The day of the party finally came, and with her princess dress on, we were off to the party at Super Franks.

When we got there, we found the princess room, and discovered that they had princess dress up clothes. The host of the party remarked that Margareta already had on a beautiful princess dress, but not one to be left out, Margareta found a matching fairy “dress” to put on over the dress she was already wearing. Then, with a tiara on top, she emerged as one of seven princesses at the party. She partook of tea and cake — and for an hour, was a princess through and through. I only have one picture that captured the moment, but will forever remember my little princess and how happy she was that day (pictured on the bottom right of the photo).

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Submitted by Maria Kubitz in memory of her daughter, Margareta Kubitz.

An Old Soul

An Old Soul

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The Urban Dictionary definition of “Old Soul” is:

“A spiritual person whom is wise beyond their years; people of strong emotional stability. Basically, someone whom has more understanding of the world around them.”

There was one moment my daughter displayed the wisdom of an old soul that will forever stay with me. She was three years old. I was home by myself with her and her three older brothers on a summer day. Boys being boys, they have a tendency of driving me nuts after being cooped up too long. Long story short, after an extended period of them not listening and causing havoc, I lost my patience. I got angry, yelled, and sent them to their rooms. It left me in an exasperated mood.

Margareta had been coloring on the dining room table while all this happened. She had just went on about her business while her brothers were being dealt with…unlike me as a little girl, who would have gone and hid thinking that the anger would find it’s way to me next. As if fulfilling my childhood expectations, my angry mood turned on Margareta next for no good reason. I snapped at her, telling her to clean up the mess of crayons all over the table. Unlike me as a little girl, who would have burst into tears or cowered in my seat and promptly obeyed, Margareta simply looked at me and said, “Mama, talk nicely to me.”

It took my breath away. This little three year old girl had enough confidence and wisdom that she could calm me down and put me in my  place all at the same time. Those magical words immediately lifted the fog of anger off of me and brought me back down to earth. To the day I die, I will never forget her words of wisdom. I only wish that I can learn to react in the same state of grace as she did when someone loses their temper around me. Or that I can channel that wisdom to avoid losing my temper.

I miss my beautiful daughter, and can only hope that some day, I’ll grow up to be like her.

Submitted by Maria Kubitz in loving memory of Margareta Sol Kubitz.