The Forgetting: An Unspoken Part of Grief

There is a sort of forgetting that happens as time goes on in grief. And I never hear this talked about. The truth is that no matter what we do, no matter how much we love our person, this forgetting is inevitable. Maybe a more accurate way to describe this forgetting would be a “physical fading,” because of course we never forget the people we love. Perhaps their essence and beingness impacts you even more now than when they were alive. But the forgetting of every single detail is real and it hurts.

When I look back on myself in early grief, I think somehow I knew. I was obsessed with writing down memories, inside jokes, and secret phrases that we loved to say. I had an urgent, overwhelming fear of this forgetting, of this fading. And now, of course — because I’m human & this is how time works, my fear has come to be.

We have these human brains, you see. And time passing blurs the sharpness of our memories. The exact tilt of their head when they laughed. The precise tone of their voice when they said our name. Their smell. It all fades, little bit by little bit. We can try to preserve their physical essence in all the ways (I have) but this fading will happen. It is unavoidable.

We hear that grief isn’t linear, and this is what we mean. We may notice with gratitude & pride how far we’ve come since the early days. And also, we may yearn for those painfully electric moments when they still felt so close. Early grief isn’t a sustainable state to remain in forever. But in finding our way forward, there are things we do trade in. The sharp memory of their hand in ours, for one.

There are layers of grief that go deeper & deeper as time goes on. We may feel the intensity of the injustice of our loss in greater ways — as we see others around us moving forward in their relationships like it’s no big deal — while ours feels frozen in time. The happy moments may bring our grief up most of all. We are surviving, maybe even eventually thriving! And how we wish they were here to see this.

I often describe my grief over the past seven years as a shift in the quality of my relationship with Brian. Slowly he has moved from my physical partner on this earth to my angel partner in the sky. My North Star. Building this new connection has ultimately meant letting go of many elements of our previous one. I still have brief moments of intense physical clarity — his touch, his laugh, his smell — but so much less often. It’s been an arduous process & an epic amount of work. And there has been so much extra grief along the way.

I remember the first day I went through all his clothes, knowing I’d have to get rid of many of them. I laid them out on our bed and I cried & I cried & I cried. I hold so much softness for the version of me then, she lives inside of me. As I write these words today, I sit here many years later, wearing my favourite of Brian's plaid shirts, as I often do. I feel connected to him and our love through it, though the smell of him long ago faded & now it smells like me. Our daughter asks to sleep with it often. The pain of the slow fading is one we don’t hear of enough. 

I do think that in the absence of our sharp memories, something else does grow. A wisdom in the knowing of what a close relationship feels like, that goes beyond this physical life. But here we are, human, and craving what we knew and what we loved. It makes so much sense that we would. 

There is grief in the forgetting & there is so much richness here too. 🤍