Note: I write this particular post 52 days in the After.
I am unsure I can fully capture for you the absolute panic of realizing that I could not conjure almost any memories of my sister after her passing. I don’t mean they were hazy or I only had a few. I mean it was like a scene from a movie where I desperately ran toward a closing door but failed to slide under it in time before I was locked away from all of them.
I could remember general themes — childhood summers, after school activities, general holiday trips home — but I could not recall any specific event or interaction. It was like she took all of the specific memories with her when she died, and all I was left with was a watered down medley of what it used to be like to have her. I freaked out. For weeks, I was in a low-level state of panic about this additional loss, which I am sure did not help my fragile brain in any way.
Even now, more than seven weeks onward, I look at photos I am in and don’t recall the interaction around it. I’m starting to wonder if a lot of my memories were already this blended sense of the past. Like I had condensed memories down not to individual moments but to a holistic memory of just being with her. The conceptual things we shared, but not the individual days. I still haven’t decide if this makes me feel better or worse. I know this is partially because in the past ten years, I have been away far, far more than I haven’t.
Does it matter that I can’t remember the jokes from one particular virtual session of Jackbox games as a family during the peak of the pandemic in 2020? Or is it enough to remember we had at least a dozen of those sessions as a family unit (our parents, her, her partner, and I) and we laughed really hard and had a great time? Depending when you ask me, I will contradict myself in my answers.
Does it change anything that I can’t remember specific shopping trips we took or precisely when we bought something? Or is it just as poignant that I cherish this blurred sense of shopping and helping each other refine our personal style being a constant touchpoint throughout middle school, high school, and adulthood? The compulsive memory hoarder I have become wants it all.
If you’re also out there grappling with the secondary loss of your ability to remember, I’ve been there. Frankly, I might still be there, no matter how long after this post you read. Talk to people about your sibling, look at photos and messages you do have, and unabashedly write yourself notes in the moments you remember. But above all, whether you remember every day or not, you lived them and they’re still yours.
Unmoored Sister 