When somebody dies, a variety of different feelings and changes occur, especially when you're much closer to the person who passes on. When a person dies you remember the tiniest details about them, like the way their mouth curled when they saw something funny on television or maybe a part of their personality that always shone through. You think to yourself I will always remember these things, but time ticks away and those memories start to fade.
My Grandfather, AKA Papa, passed away in 2006 from brain cancer and his death holds a lot of memories I try to forget. I saw the man I put on a pedestal of gold crumble into someone I barely recognized sitting in the hospice bed. I can close my eyes and still see his pre-cancer smile, but a lot of the memories I first see are ones of him staring off at the television unaware that I was in the room. I have a hard time hearing his voice in my head almost nine years after his death. I have great memories with him and my Grandmom, but it's the tiniest details of himself that I have unconsciously forgotten.
My dad went to work on July 20, 2011 and didn't get to come home. This year marks five years since he passed and I sometimes still think my phone will ring and it will be his name on the screen or I'll see his car pull into the driveway. I catch myself talking about him in the present tense and get annoyed with myself when I feel like I tell the same stories over and over because I haven't had any new ones with him. I can't hear his voice either, but I hear his laugh. I look in the mirror and see him, but close my eyes and can only see the outline of his face. I've forgotten the details I got to see every day, like how he possibly put on his shoes, but I remind myself that something like tying shoes is not necessarily the biggest thing to stress over remembering.
They say time heals death, but I wish time didn't fade the images of those who have passed on or be so extremely final that I still struggle to believe that those loved ones are really 100 percent gone. I drive past my great grandmother's house when I'm home and I wonder how she's doing, but she passed away almost a year ago. I found out this week that someone my family knew passed away and I am sitting here wondering what I can remember about that person when I saw them or when the last time I got to see them was. I didn't believe it when I heard and that's the trickiest part of death.
Death has taken many people in my life who were not ready to go, but I try my very hardest to keep those people alive, even when Death tries eating away the memories I thought I locked down forever. Think back to the physical memories that are fading, look at pictures when you're ready, try to forget how they changed when they were sick. The person you lost is not able to come through the front door anymore, but don't let death take away the memories that person was able to offer when they did come home.
