L is for Love, or perhaps it's for Loss, because that is what invariably results from Love. What is it "they" say? "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". I tend not to agree with them. Or perhaps I do. I am of two (at least) minds about this one - partly, I think, because my visual memory is not good - and certainly my powers of description (what did/do they look like?) are worse. When it comes time to recalling a loved one - even if we are parted only for a day - I can get the sense of them and vaguely try to describe them to myself - but it's definitely wanting. Photographs help but not enough. And when there are images - they are often ones I would rather not have. Although, writing that, I realise that the image I have of my father, after his death, at the viewing where he is in one of his favourite Thai shirts, and with the Superman tee placed in the coffin with him - even though it is a hard image, it is one I do hold on to because this is when I knew that he was finally "free" from the brain tumour that had stolen his life slowly over the more than two years between diagnosis and last breath. Of course, I can think of other instances of him if I look at photographs, or try to imagine him in a remembered setting, but I cannot recall the rich vibrance of the man he was. Hopefully other people are able to conjure up their loved ones better. But does that make it easier? Or harder? I truly am at a loss to know.
1 comment:
I understand what you mean. Sometimes the image of someone is hard to bring to mind. I find that the other senses invoke memories more than sight. The way they sounded, their smell or a perfume they wore, even the feel of their skin or hair. This is the way I remember my son from so many years gone.
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