Someone recently asked me if there was any one thing, one most important thing, I would ask of people around the death and grief of my daughters’ deaths.
I was surprised at how easily my answer came – there are so many things I could say, but this quickly arose as the most important:
Please remember them.
Remember their names.
Remember that they lived.
Remember that I am their mother.
Remember that they were, and are, loved.
Remember them.
For me, aside from the absence of them, my greatest pain is the fear that they will be forgotten. Lost in the passing of time and space. That because there is so little physical proof of their life here, even the memory of them will disappear for everyone but me.
So, please, remember them.
Not just when the grief is or was fresh and new. Remember them after years and decades have past and they are still gone.
Remember that they lived.
Remember that I carried them.
Remember that I am their mother – then, now, always. Even when I’m 90 and preparing to leave this earth, they will still be mine and I will be theirs.
Remember that they were and are and will forever be loved.
Remember them.
For always.
Emily works hard to increase education and improve care for bereaved mothers with medical professionals and other counselors. She also works with clients individually to provide support for grieving mothers and fathers. She writes and educates through her website, Emily Long: Archaeologist of the Living.
- I Should Know Them Now - May 29, 2017
- Stolen Memories - March 8, 2017
- Receiving Support - October 14, 2016
My daughter, Ashley, was stillborn on February 10th, 1991. She is sister to her surviving identical twin, Rachel. We have never forgotten her and the older I get the more I talk about my experience about being a new mother of twins, one who had died and one who lives on.
The hospital where my daughter’s were born gave me Ashley’s footprints on a card to keep. It took me many years but I now proudly wear those tiny footprints on my left forearm.
She lives on in our hearts. Thank you for your words.
We remember them – we have a tree and a rose bush, planted in their honor. Their brother and sister never met them, but they know about them and remember them when the tree and bush blossom every spring…
<3 <3 <3
Thank you, for saying what I have been thinking for years. THank you. <3
You are most welcome. We’ll always remember <3
This is always my biggest fear. I am only 3 weeks past the time my Boone died. And I am so scared of forgetting him.