Remembering a Loved One

It’s natural to want to remember a loved one who has gone before us, to recall how they touched our lives. And there are so many ways you can capture these memories. Think about your loved one for a few minutes – what did she love to do? Was he an adventurer? Did she love to cook? Did he love to clean? Take those things that made your loved one special, and consider how that can help mold how you remember.

Here are a few ideas to help you remember:

  • Why is this important? – It can be very hard to remember at times, why is it so valuable?
  • Collecting stories from others – Whether you have family and friends living close to you or far away, their stories and remembrances of your loved one will be invaluable.
  • Photo journaling – Pictures and stories together are a powerful combination
  • Writing your stories – Writing can be a very comforting way of remembering.
  • Memorabilia and treasures – What to do with some of her prized possessions?
  • Online memorials – Present your collected memories in a way that people all over the world can view them.
  • Tributes during the holidays and anniversaries – Here are a few ideas and links to ways you can pay tribute to your loved ones, especially useful during holidays and other times of the year when you will want to remember in special ways.
  • Preservation/Care – Your memories will last longer if you use acid-free and archival safe materials where possible. This section gives you links all over the web that will help you preserve your memories.

 

Books about Remembering – There are many books that talk about remembering a loved one who has died, or that help you to write about your thoughts, feelings, and memories:

 

Take these ideas and add to them as you wish. After you visit these pages, I hope you have the urge to do something, anything, to capture your memories, in whatever manner you feel is most appropriate.

After gathering these memories, you will come away with something tangible, something that you can literally hold on to, helping you keep your memories of your loved one alive. You, and those you share it with, will appreciate it more than you will ever know.

 

Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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