About Us

Our Philosophy: While more people are recording the stories of their lives these days, it is something that we normally don’t think about until we are older. As such, when someone passes away while still young, their stories are kept only in the hearts and minds of those who knew them best. Our hope is to encourage everyone to get those stories and memories down on paper so they can be shared with everyone who knew your loved one as you did, or would like to know them better.

The importance of this can best be seen in the example of children who lose a parent at a young age. They will never have the opportunity to get to know their mother or father, except through the stories and memories of those who knew him or her best. Originally, this site was intended to reach out to those families, but we know that grief does not exclude itself to only losing a parent, so we extended its outreach to anyone and everyone who has lost a loved one.

 


JanellMemories are Forever is maintained by me, Janell Vasquez. As a genealogist/personal historian, I’ve always believed in the importance of telling and preserving our life stories, and I’ve seen in my own experience how much more valuable they become to us after our loved ones are gone.

I hope this site will help encourage you to remember and preserve your memories – both for yourself and for those you love!

Jeffrey Vasquez, my husband, is the resident editor, artist, sounding board, and all around wonderful husband. He has been instrumental in helping to get this site and its related projects off the ground. He drew the picture of me above, so I’m a little attached to it – one of these days I may scan in a photo of myself, or I may not. Who knows….

 

This site was first built in 2004. I built it with the hope of being able to keep it advertising free, with the exception of helping to encourage a business who was doing something wonderful that I believed in, and used myself. Since then, many things have happened, I got a full-time job in the genealogy field (amazing!), and I wasn’t able to do much with this site.

However, now, I am hoping to be able to become a stay-at-home mom, and would love for this site to help me along that path. If the new advertisements offend anyone, I truly apologize, but know that I have used the products I advertise myself and truly believe that they will be beneficial for you in your journey through grief. That is our goal – to provide you with unique resources that you can use to suit your needs and discover the comfort and peace that comes with remembering.

If you have any comments or suggestions for this site, I’d love to hear from you – janell … at … memories-are-forever.org. (Replace the … at … with @.)

 

Disclaimer: There are a few ways that I bring in a little money to help cover my time and expenses for working on this site. I am an affiliate of the advertisers you see on the right, and sometimes in the text of articles. However, I am also a paying customer of those sites and think that they are good organizations to work with. Thank you for helping to support this site by purchasing from our affiliate vendors.

 

Quotes

Remembering the past makes hoping for the future possible. — Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D., Center for Loss

Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you there. — Isla Paschal Richardson

To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die. — Thomas Campbell

Photographs are precious memories . . . the visual evidence of place and time and relationships . . . ritual talismans for the treasure chest of the heart. — Robert Fulghum, in From Beginning to End

In love longing
I listen to the monk's bell.
I will never forget you
even for an interval
Short as those between the bell notes. — Izumi Shikibu

What the heart has once known, it shall never forget. — Author unknown

While both joy and sorrow are fleeting, and often intertwined, love has the power to overcome both. And love can last forever. — Deb Fulton, in "The Power of Love" from A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul

We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory. — Georges Duhamel

In one of the stars, I shall be living.
In one of them, I shall be laughing.
And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery, from The Little Prince

Let the joy of your loved one's life begin to take the place of the hurt and anger of the death. — Darcie D. Sims, Grief Inc.

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.... Play, smile, think of me.... All is well. — Henry Scott Holland

Recall as often as you wish; a happy memory never wears out. — Libbie Fudim

Give sorrow words;
the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart
and bids it break. — William Shakespeare, in Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III

If I am to wear this mourning cloak, let it be made of the fabric of love, woven by the fine thread of memory. — Molly Fumia, in Safe Passage

Memory is a passion no less powerful or pervasive than love. What does it mean to remember? It is to live in more than one world, to prevent the past from fading and to call upon the future to illuminate it. — Elie Wiesel, in All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs

Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy. — Eskimo Legend

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind. And in it are enshrined
the precious keepsakes, into which is wrought the giver's loving thought. — H.W. Longfellow

When a once painful reminder evokes a gentle laugh, when we recognize the joy of the present in an image from the past, we have arrived at an important moment. Those memories are being transformed, unmistakably, into messages of hope. — Molly Fumia, in Safe Passage

Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. — Rossiter W. Raymond

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