How Do We Keep Their Memory Alive?

When I was in 8th grade, we lived on a ranch that was half an hour from town. This meant that trips to the store were neither convenient nor frequent. The school bus brought me to and from school, and my dad left early in the morning to get to his office, only to return after dark. One day, when the bus had already brought me home and Dad was just about to leave his office, I called and asked him to stop by Walmart and get me a tape of my favorite song. Usually, our calls to Dad were for snacks or for something Mom needed him to pick up for dinner. That season, however, I was obsessed with a tune by the group Pretty Boy Floyd, and I really needed the tape with an uncomfortable desperation. I was moody and impatient to listen to it over and over again on my bright yellow, Sony Walkman. My dad, who was always one for a task or a reason to go to the store, happily obliged. 

When my dad got home, he was so excited to give me what he found: a tape of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I feigned enthusiasm and went to my room to listen to the strange group, which was so different from what I had hoped. By the end of begrudgingly playing the entire album, I was hooked. Throughout the following weeks, I memorized the lines to every song, and I played Wish You Were Here until the tape grew groggy and slow. A few months later, I shared with my dad the joy of discovering new music to me, and we had a good laugh.

If you’ve lost someone close in your life, you undoubtedly know that moment when you pick up the phone to call them and then realize that you no longer can. If their phone number hasn’t been discontinued yet, you will call them anyway just to hear their voicemail. Even if it’s an automated voice stating that you’ve reached their number, or that the number is no longer in service,  the act of calling will bring you a temporary sense of normalcy and comfort. You will go through old texts, voicemails, and emails; you will go through handwritten letters, photographs, gifts they’ve given, clothing, and pieces of their individual past. Then, you will face the task of deciding what to keep. 

My mother goes through boxes for her memories. She is obsessively organized and thorough when it comes to the things she has kept and is intent on passing along. There are boxes of letters, magazine articles, plaques, photographs, notebooks, health records, and report cards from preschool and beyond. There is artwork from the time we could hold a crayon. You name it–she’s kept it, and she’s ready to share and let them be a part of our storage rooms now. 

There are different ways we try to connect to the past through what we keep and do. There are different ways we go about honoring those we have lost. With the help of the soccer club where Clinton was coaching, we established a scholarship. I dedicated a memorial bench above the field where Clinton and his players would occupy the rich, green grass — a retreat for one very special coach and the athletes he mentored. I write down all the memories I can, and I talk about Clinton with our children as much as possible. We have a digital frame in our kitchen that won’t let us go more than a minute without displaying a picture of our favorite person, and there will soon be a high school scholarship in Clinton’s name. All of this–all of this, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. 

So, how do we honor and remember those who have been so incredibly loved and irreplaceably important in our lives?  How do we ever do justice for, and continue to memorialize the deceased in a way that feels equal to who they were during their life? And the answer, I think, is that we’ve been doing it wrong.

There will never be enough stuff to honor, celebrate, or capture the essence of who a person was in their lifetime. The furniture, the photographs, the memories, and the newspaper clippings will no doubt find a place in the history of things. They will even bring about beautiful conversations, a connection to the past, and they will leave an important legacy, but they will not be richer than the experienced moment for those who have truly lived with the living.  

The very first birthday I had without my father’s phone call was hard. On my way to work that morning, he was on my mind, and I struggled to keep it together. Five minutes before arriving at work, I was distracted and didn’t realize that my typical radio station wasn’t playing. I am a creature of habit, and it was out of place for me to have something else on. So when the song, Wish You Were Here began to play, I knew that it was my Dad’s way of wishing me a happy birthday, of being with me. Since then, I have had numerous exchanges with both my dad and Clinton, all based on moments we shared.  

I do not think that memories are captured in boxes with collected things. Honoring someone in public or non-public ways will never truly encapsulate who that person was to you in your life. Memories are lived and relived throughout the days that you are blessed to be breathing here on earth. They are exchanges between the living and the dead, and they are everywhere that you look and listen–where there isn’t a box or even a photograph. They are in a song, they are on the soccer field, they are in the familiar way your children run. They are in the weather, at restaurants, playgrounds, and ski hills. They are in books. They come out through the actions and the deeds of those who are here, and who have had their lives changed forever by loving and the love of someone else.

The gift we can give to honor the dead is to be present with those who are still with us. Create memories that will exist as an integral part of your being long after they are gone. Be truly present with people, so that who you have become around them is enough to be reflected in future generations. Reject the notion of coincidences, and be open to the life that continues to exist from past experiences.