Grief and Loss

Last night I watched The Cleaner a movie about a retired police office who cleans up crime scenes. In the film, Samuel L. Jackson does a clean up that unknowingly gets him into lots of trouble. A single parent, his daughter is doing a "research project" for school on her mom, who was murdered during a robbery. That's the background you need. At one pivotal point in the movie, father and daughter are having a particularly heated argument that Jackson believes is rooted in his daughter doing this project. She responds that it isn't the project, it isn't even a real school assignment - she's upset because "I'm starting to forget her [mother]!"
What a powerful scene. It actually brought tears to my eyes, not because it was particularly well acted or the cinematography was particularly good. It brought tears to my eyes because it reminded me of the first time I realized that I was forgetting my own mother.
It's a tough thing when your mother dies at a young age whether its sudden or from a long disease. Either way there is a void in your life the likes of which was previously unknown. I know, I've been there. It's a particularly horrifying moment when you realize that pieces of the memory you have of your mother is slipping away. The moment when you forget the kinds of things she used to say. The moment when you forget the kinds of cloths or jewelry she liked to wear. The moment when you forget the sound of her voice and the moment when even what she looked like seems more like an uncertain dream to be questioned than anything rooted in reality. I remember those moments. They threaten to tear your very soul in two. Questions like, "if I really loved her, how could I forget her?" come creeping into you world and suddenly not only are you questioning your memory of the one who brought you into the world, you're also questioning the validity of the relationship you thought you had. You grasp at straws, desperately searching your memory for any recollection of things that she did, her mannerisms, things she cooked (which the daughter also does in the film), things she'd say in a particular situation and any rituals that she might have had. You punish yourself for forgetting, even though its a human process, even though you knew, deep down in the recesses of your soul, that one day it would happen. And if you're not careful this guilt can and will take over your life.
What the daughter in The Cleaner doesn't realize and what I learned along the way, something they never tell you in bereavement groups or pastoral care classes, is that while your memory of specific minute details fails, what you do remember is the essence of the person.
You see I think that our human brains can't handle all the little details. Over time they get combined together or simply labeled as irrelevant and deleted like junk mail in our inboxes. What takes their place is a holistic memory, one that encapsulates all the little pieces into one seemingly little whole. If I push myself I can still remember what mom looked like, how she dressed, the things she felt were important, the things she would say, the expression on her face at certain moments, what she liked to cook and her mannerisms. Yet what most frequently and earnestly comes to mind when I think of her isn't those little details, but a memory of who she was. It's more of a feeling or an experience that a memory in the sense of a snap shot in time. I experience who she was and who she continues to be for me. I fell her love, understanding, strength, perseverance, and care. I know the strength of her personality and the depth of her compassion. These are far greater "memories" than the last meal she cooked or the last family gathering she could really participate in, or her last days in semi-lucid delirium in hospital. In stark contrast to those kinds of memories, these are the ones that really count. These are the ones that inform my being.
Yes, I forget. Yet the experience that has emerged is far greater than any one memory.