A Memory Writes Back
Immediately after my grandmother died, I called her number knowing she wouldn’t pick up. I just wanted to dial it one last time before the number was reassigned to someone else. I still keep her contact details on my phone because I like to scroll past her name.
So this article about a woman who emails her dad after he dies resonated with me. She works through her grief by telling him about it: “For months I transcribed the hostile anguish in my head into emails to my father, which I would then seal off with the addition of his email address and save in my drafts folder.” Until the day she accidentally sends one.
And then another. And another. What started as an accident becomes a purposeful action, telling her father’s old email account what is happening in her life. And then she receives a response.
I shot the signals of my mourning into space for months, fully expecting them to die unreceived. And when I least expected it, someone sent signals back that said, “You are not the last living witness to the relationship you had with your father.” Our loved ones take so much history with them when they go. The death itself is never the only loss we’re mourning.
It’s really an incredible piece.
3 comments
I too have both my grandmothers’ contact info still on my phone. One of my cousins couldn’t bear the thought of a stranger having her phone number so she had it transferred to herself. I like at l’dor v’dor (from generation to generation) feeling of continuity.
And I tell my child stories which helps me.
My dad died long before the age of electronics that would hold his info. And, since he was adored by us, his sisters (although they too are all gone now), and my mom’s sisters, we always have people willing to share his stories and our grief. I do still have my mom’s email address and probably her phone numbers – I wish I had a voicemail from her, though.
I think the key is having siblings so you know someone who feels similarly – I think my daughter would be able to write an article like this someday (if not for the fact that I am convinced that my husband will outlive us all). She will be in short supply of people to share her grief, as she is an only child and we are not social.
That is a lovely article, and I love the response from the person who responded.
I think we’re all alone with the relationships we have with our parents. I know my relationship with my mother, for example, was completely different from the relationship my sisters had – and theirs are completely different from each other. And it was less about her, than about our own perspectives and personalities (as far as I can see).
But what I do know is that the relationships stay with us. We don’t lose that past, even if we lose it in the present and future. And that’s really special.