The Fear of Being Forgotten

One wonderful facet of blogging is reading about someone else’s life and thoughts, then allowing what I read to affect me, change me, prod me.

I had a brief e-conversation with the creator of the blog Rendezvous with Renee recently about a quote I borrowed from one of her pieces. In our exchange, she referred me to another of her posts. I have provided the link to it below.

The Fear of Being Forgotten.

The title of it got me thinking about my own similar fear. I figure I have about 20 productive years, at most, ahead of me. Twenty years are nothing. The time goes in a flash. Don’t believe me? Look at that child of yours nearing college age or finishing college. The span of their lifetime is a blur. It’s gone by so fast.

Anyway, I started thinking about my writing ambition. I have had it my whole life. Over the course of years, I kept saying about writing professionally, “Not yet, not yet. I haven’t lived enough. I don’t have anything to say.”

Then that thought changed. Now I fret that I won’t have time to get the words out of me. I fret that life will get in the way, and my stories won’t get told.

Yes, I fear I’ll be forgotten.

Oh, I know that I’ll be remembered by friends, family and children who outlive me. But when they are gone, then what? Poof. I’m gone for good. Especially in an age of digital data. There will be no paintings of me that pass from generation to generation, hung in the family library or den. Photographs of me saved on-line or in home computers will disappear. My e-books-to-be will corrupt in an outdated e-reader.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, twinkle in my father’s eye to twinkle in the starry sky. But who will be looking for the miniscule twinkle? Who will care?

At some level, it is the fear of being forgotten that motivates me to write.

Writing About the Death of a Child

Unless one has lost, or is losing, a child to death, one will find it difficult to portray what that experience is really like. I tried and couldn’t do it.

I learned something about myself during the exercise. I couldn’t conjure a meaningful tale. I couldn’t capture the essence. I tried to describe the moment between a dying child and the child’s mother at the instant when conversation turns to the child’s wishes and thoughts about the child’s own death.  I failed.

Maybe it is because I am a mother that I sabotaged the tale-telling. I don’t want to imagine the horror and pain of losing my child. And, worse, I don’t want to imagine being a dying child.

As I am writing this, I am remembering an episode from my early teens. I lost a classmate to cancer. I remember a couple of other kids and I went to visit the dying girl in the hospital. She made it easier on us during the visit by being upbeat.

She and I were not close friends. However, we shared an interest in dodgeball and softball pick-up games on the playground. Often we were the only girls on the field. It was early enough in puberty that we were physically matched to, and sometimes exceeded, the prowess of the boys. Our pride bonded us together.

I forgot–or blocked–that particular experience from my childhood when I was writing. It would have helped to call on my vague memories of those hospital conversations with my friend. I could have used my memories to reconnect to my internal conflict and despair. I could have tapped into the confusion I felt as a child who was getting a premature lesson in death and dying.

Instead, I choked. I went no deeper than re-mixing the song lyrics with a wooden spoon.

Subconsciously, I did tap into the nobility my friend exhibited. She was matter-of-fact about her lot. Like the character in my story, she focused her energies on making those who spent time with her feel better at a time when they felt awful. She lived her last weeks with grace.

In that small way, my story honored my friend. She died too young.