221. The Fear of Forgetting Our Loved Ones: Navigating Grief and Our Memory

Have you ever woken up and panicked because you couldn't quite remember the sound of your loved one's voice, or the exact way they laughed? That quiet, creeping fear of forgetting is one of the most common and least talked-about experiences in grief. 

And if you've felt it, you are so not alone... and you are absolutely not failing them. Six years out from losing both of my parents I'm still navigating this fear myself, and today I'm sitting with you in it, breaking down why it happens, what it actually means, and what you can gently do about it.

In this episode, we explore:
✨  Why the fear of forgetting your loved one is so common in grief
✨ The shame spiral that tends to come with it 
✨ The neuroscience of grief and memory
✨ What neuroscientist and author Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor says about how the brain works
✨ Why the feeling of someone stays encoded in you even when the specific details start to fade
✨ The continuing bonds framework
✨  Gentle, low-pressure ideas for preserving memories and staying connected to your person

Whether you're newly grieving or years out from your loss like me, my hope is that this episode leaves you feeling seen, validated, and a little more at peace with the perfectly imperfect way your brain holds onto the people you love.

Resources mentioned:
📖 The Grieving Brain by Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor

Learn more about Letters of Light 💌✨ https://lossesbecomegains.com/letters

Transcript

Acknowledging the fear of forgetting our loved one

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Life with Grief. I'm Tara, your host and ally in this crazy life after loss. And I am just so, so grateful you are here with me today. Whether you have been around this podcast for a while or whether you're newer or just finding me, I just want to say I'm so thankful for you. And as always, with these morning sips and soul shifts episodes, really any episode here on the podcast, I invite you to get comfortable or as comfortable as you can if you're not driving or running errands or doing something as you're listening. That's definitely how I listen to a lot of my podcasts too. But just get as comfortable as you can, grab your go-to drink, and let's just get right into it today, because this is a really powerful topic. And it's one I've kind of touched on here and there throughout certain episodes, but I really wanted to give it its own dedicated space today. And what's really special about this particular topic is it actually came directly from one of you. So I think several weeks ago now, I had posted on my stories on Instagram. Like, what topics do you want to hear on the podcast? What would be helpful? And because I love checking in with you guys, and I'm pleased. No, I am always open to hearing however I can best serve you and give you what you need here on the podcast. But a listener reached out and shared what we're talking about today. And I think it's something that so many of us feel, but maybe never say aloud, or we might feel a little uncomfortable saying out loud, or we don't know how to articulate it. And it's just that feeling that we are scared that over time we are starting to forget our person or that we're going to start forgetting them. Their voice, the way that they laughed, certain memories, specific things they used to say, right? The list goes on. And I just want to start by saying: if you have ever felt that way, if you are feeling that way right now, you are so not alone. Clearly, there's at least one other person out there and myself as well. And you are not feeling your loved one or loved ones by having a human brain that works exactly the way human brains are supposed to work. And we're gonna get into what I mean by that in just a second here. But that fear, that kind of quiet panic of like, wait, what do their voice sound like? Or whatever we fear we're going to start forgetting is one of the most common and sometimes least talked about experiences in grief. And we are absolutely digging into that today. So, first, I just want to validate this experience. Let's just name what this fear actually feels like because I think a lot of us have or are experiencing it. It might show up as waking up one day and realizing that you can't quite picture their face in the way that you used to be able to, or remember details of their face without a photo, or forgetting the exact sound of their laugh or their voice. It might be not being able to remember a specific story they told or a piece of advice that they gave you that you swore you'd never forget, or it might just be this very low-grade anxiety that sort of hums in the background of your life. And it's just this feeling that as time passes, they are somehow slipping further and further away from you. You might start to question what they would say in a certain situation or what advice they would give, their mannerisms. And I bring those three examples up very specifically because that is totally where I am right now in my own grief experience, if you will. So if you can empathize with any of that, please know. Like I said, you are not alone. That is about where I'm at six years out. And it's kind of freaky because not only are we sort of like second guessing our memory and how well our memory works, but it can even sometimes make us question like, how well did I really know that person? Like, you know how some people will sometimes say to us, like, oh, you know what they would want you to do. And I've I've had people say that to me. I've had people say that to me recently, but it kind of again, it kind of freaks me out because I'm like, do I though? Like now, I'm I'm not sure. And that's unsettling. I just want to like call that out if you can relate to that at all. That's one, that's only just one facet of this, but that is so real for so many of us. And

Guilt and Shame Spiral of Grief

SPEAKER_00 4:43

here's where it gets even more painful, on top of just again feeling unsettled that we might be forgetting some things. Most of us don't feel just scared when this happens. We feel guilty or even shameful about it, right? We might think things like, you know, if I really loved them, I would remember every single detail, or, you know, it's only been X number of years. How am I already forgetting? And I want to say something very painfully direct here. That shame is chock full of lies. Okay, I promise you. Forgetting a detail is not a measurement of how much you loved someone. I hope you know that. You probably know that, but sometimes we just need to hear it. And it is a measure of how long you've been human, if anything, living a life that keeps moving, even when a part of you wants to stand still and wants to be almost like closer to the death, because that means you're not moving too far forward without them. And those details are easier to recall, right? And that is the whole premise of life with grief, because that is exactly what it means to do life after loss. And that is so complex and that is so nuanced. And so I just want you to know more than anything that I see you in that today. And truthfully, there have been moments, especially in the first few years after losing my parents, where I did get a little panicky. Even now it still happens because I couldn't immediately recall the exact way that my mom or dad would say something, or a specific memory felt blurry around the edges a little bit. Or it's like, maybe you can relate to this, but it's like I can only like I feel like I have like these big core memories, but like it's a lot of the little smaller day-to-day ones that I feel like I don't always remember. And it it's like, yeah, on paper, those might be like mundane memories, but nothing about it is mundane when we're missing them and we're just itching to get any memory we can. But sometimes I've I've had that moment where I'm like, why can I, why are all like certain ones always the ones that stick out at me? Like, is that seriously all I remember? Like, and it's a process. Sometimes something will happen, or I'm talking to someone and it does jog a memory for me. And I'm like, oh, okay, there it's still in there, you know? But sometimes it feels like it's not. And so I just want to validate that too. And I remember, I can relate to that gut punch feeling of like, does this mean I'm forgetting them? Are they seriously like escaping me right now? And I just want you to know you have at least one person in your life that can understand that fear on a very deeply personal level. And now, especially with my daughter in the picture and the the further away that I am from when they actually died, I'm feeling this now more than ever. But regardless of whether you have kids or not, that's not the point here. There's just, I don't know. Like for me personally, there's so many things going on in my life right now that I wish I could go to them for, or I think about what they would say or what advice they would give. And I question it. I alluded to this earlier, but it's like I question it because I don't know if that's me talking or if that's them talking, you know? So again, in the comments, wherever you're listening today, like, please tell me if you can relate to that or if that's a fear that you have too. Like, that is really, I would say, again, like six years out, what I'm grappling with the most right now is like, okay, is this what they would actually say? Is this my own ego getting in the way? It's it's very hard to discern that sometimes.

Why Memory Fades After Loss

SPEAKER_00 8:37

But here's something that I think is so important and not always talked about enough or provided in the context of this forgetfulness that we're feeling. We're gonna get a little science-y here, but I promise it'll be, it'll be fun. Hopefully, this will be, this will give you a lot of clarity on what's going on. Human memory is not a video camera, right? You probably know that, you probably assume that. And it was never designed to be. Memory is actually reconstructive, which means every single time that you recall something, your brain is actively rebuilding it from stored fragments rather than like pressing play on a perfect recording. And that process is kind of imperfect by design, not by a personal failure of your brain or of your memory. You might be familiar with the part of the brain called the hippocampus, and that plays a huge role in forming and retrieving memories. And research shows that over time, memories naturally fade and shift in their detail, especially episodic memories, which are the specific like snapshot moments we experience in life. What's really interesting is that the brain tends to preserve the emotional core of a memory much longer and more reliably than the specific details. This is probably not surprising, right? This is probably what you're dealing with right now. So you might not be able to recall exactly what your person was wearing or the precise words they used, or those details that we are clinging to right now. But the feeling of that moment that tends to stick around a little longer. And probably unsurprisingly, grief itself actually affects the memory in ways that most people are not told about. Stress hormones that flood your body when you're in that acute grief can actually interfere with memory consolidation, which means you might have patchy memories right around the time of your loss. And that is a psychological response, not a sign that you weren't paying enough attention, right? There's also something called destination memory and source memory. And that naturally declines over time for everyone. Meaning, the older a memory gets, the harder it can be to recall the exact context around it, even for very deeply meaningful moments. Dr. Mary Frances O'Connor, who I absolutely love, I have both of her books, The Grieving Brain and The Grieving Body. She has a PhD in clinical psychology. She explains that the brain devotes enormous effort to mapping where our loved ones are while they're alive. So we can find them when we need them, right? And that the brain often prefers habits and predictions over new information. So think about it. When someone we love dies, those predictive maps shhatter effectively. And grieving is essentially this long process, this long arc of updating them. I've touched on that here and there on the podcast before, but I always think that's worth mentioning because again, I think it's so fascinating how the brain works as we're grieving, which by the way, like not an ad. I recommend The Grieving Brain to literally everyone I know, whether you have endured a loss yet or not. So I'm just saying it's a phenomenal book. But anyway, her core framework is that grieving can be thought of as really a form of learning, specifically learning to update the brain's prediction that the loved one will always be there, to the reality that they are truly gone. She even developed what she calls the gone but also everlasting hypothesis, which is the idea that both things can be true at once. So she explains that grieving people often have two contradictory beliefs simultaneously: the knowledge that our loved one unfortunately is dead, alongside a very persistent feeling that the person will never return. Now, rather than pathologizing this, she names it as a normal part of how the brain works, which brings us back to why that feeling of someone doesn't disappear necessarily, even when the specific memories fade. And she describes a grieving brain kind of like a computer that's updating a program in the background. I kind of like this analogy. It becomes very difficult to focus on simple tasks and we don't encode situations as readily, which can make it hard to remember them later. And so we feel that our memory is poor or that something's going on with it, right? But none of this means that your memories are broken or that you loved them any less. It just means that your brain is human and it is doing exactly what human brains do. I cannot tell you how many clients, pretty much every single one, has expressed this to me at some point or has gone through this or thought they were losing their mind or thought they were going crazy or were so rightfully scared of forgetting their loved one. And this is the type of thing that I work with people on, including myself, right? Like even before I became a certified grief coach or any of these things, because I think it is so, it's so important to understand what is going on in our mind, body, spirit, like all the things, not only just as the loss is happening, but even before it and well after it as well. And I think in doing that, it can help give us a lot of grace for ourselves and even others around us. But what I've come to believe, both through my own grief and through walking alongside so many other grievers, is this even when the details fade, that feeling of someone doesn't to kind of echo what Dr. O'Connor said. And you might not be able to perfectly recall the exact sound of their voice, but you do know how it made you feel when they called your name, for example, right? But that feeling, that warmth, that safety, that love, whatever it is your loved one gave to you is encoded in you in a way that goes beyond memory, beyond space and time, really. And that doesn't disappear just because time keeps passing. I know it can feel that way. I do, but I promise it's not. And I personally always think about that expression that says, you know, people won't always remember what you say or what you said, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And I think that's so beautiful and important and is really quite true. And that is definitely the case with my parents. As much as I wish I could recall every single conversation, every single detail, like everything, absolutely everything. I know that is just not realistic. That is not how this life works, that's not how our brain works, and it's unfortunately just one of those parts that we just have to live with in this life with grief. But to quickly bring it back to Dr. O'Connor again, actually, choosing to engage with the present doesn't mean forgetting your loved one who died either. Rather, healthy grieving, in fact, involves maintaining the ability to move between memories of the past and engagement with the present without using either as a way to like avoid or escape the other. So I think there's just this really healthy, delicate balance we can strike. And that is something that I feel I've really been able to strike in my own life, but there's been a lot of work that has gone into that. And that is not to say I don't still have my difficult moments. And with the many, many grievers I've spoken to, and even other grief coaches and therapists, like we all go through this, right? But you carry them with you in the way you move through the world, in the things that they taught you, the way that you love other people, or the way you show compassion or empathy in the pieces of yourself that were shaped by knowing them or literally coming from them, if you have also lost a parent like me.

Continuing Bonds in Grief

SPEAKER_00 17:05

And really quick, I would be remiss if I did not mention continuing bonds here, because I think this can just hopefully gently introduce a slightly different way to think about this. Again, just hang with me on this. If it doesn't resonate right now, that is absolutely fine. Save it for later. But if you were not familiar with this concept already, there is a concept in grief called continuing bonds. You might have heard of it, and it's just this idea that grief doesn't have to be about letting them go or just letting go. It can be about finding a new way to stay connected to who they were. So, for example, instead of asking, you know, how do I hold on to every single detail, which sadly is an impossible standard to hold ourselves to, we can ask, how do I stay in relationship with this person even now? And that shift in question kind of changes everything because suddenly it's not about a memory test that you are gonna pass or fail. It is, I know this sounds so maybe cliche and woo-woo, but just hang with me. It's about love as something that doesn't have an expiration date. And in one of my recent guest episodes, somebody had asked her, you know, like, well, you know, how long are you gonna grieve? And I hear this a lot, but she's like, Well, you know, how long did I know her and how long am I gonna be alive? Because until I'm reunited with them, basically, that's how long I'm gonna grieve. And that's heavy. I'm not gonna sit here and say that's not heavy, but hopefully, in that there's also a release to have to be quote unquote healed or better or whatever by any arbitrary date. You know what I mean? It truly is a process of integration. That is very much what grief and these losses are in our life. It is integrating them in and still honoring what we've been through, honoring who we've lost, and continuing those bonds.

Gentle Ways to Remember Our Loved Ones

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Now, a really quick note before I move into some of the ideas I have for you today, just some very high-level things you can hopefully take away with you today that you can maybe implement in your own life. I just want to be clear that none of these recommendations or ideas are here to make you feel like you need to run home and complete this like crazy 47-step preservation project to keep your loved one alive or, you know, prove how much you loved your person. These are simply some gentle ideas, things that have helped me or people I work with, or things that I've just heard working in this grief space as I have that have been very helpful or cathartic for some people. And you can just take what resonates and leave the rest, as always. Now, this first one is simply writing things down when you remember them. Not even necessarily because you're afraid of forgetting, but really you can almost reframe it as like just an act of love and celebration of who they were and remembering that little piece of them and wanting to perhaps just have a record of that in some capacity. And maybe it's something you look back on, or your children can look back on if you have them, or really just anyone in your life wanting to revisit memories with that particular loved one. A second thing you could try is asking people who knew them to share their memories with you too. Now I know this might sound like another basic one. It's like Tara, duh, or I maybe I've done that, but you'd be surprised how often people actually don't do this or say they're gonna do it, and then they never do. Because sometimes in these situations, it takes some vulnerability. It takes a little bit of courage, maybe to ask a loved one or ask a family member or a friend to think about some of these memories because I understand it can be painful and you might not totally feel comfortable asking about it because you don't want to make other people uncomfortable or make them dredge it up either. But my hope is that it can perhaps be done in a way where it's like just so out of love. And it's like, hey, I just want to reminis a little bit and can we think of some happy times? Is there a funny story that you maybe have, right? Like there's it is heavy, but there are ways to make it light and not make it burdensome for the person that you're asking. And another reason I love offering this is because you just never know. There's stories about your person might spark things in you that you thought were gone. I alluded to this earlier, but this has happened to me before where I, you know, there's some memory, there's something buried deep within me. And someone said something, and I was like, oh my God, that that jolted something about a memory that I had with my mom or dad that like I for sure thought would have been lost. So it's it's magical what could come. Out of these conversations and being in community like that and and with people who knew your person too is such a beautiful thing and it could bring you together more. So just throwing it out there as an option. Number three is creating a space for them in your daily life that feels natural to you. So this might look like a photo. I have a couple photos of my parents just on this windowsill in my living room, and that's kind of their space, right? Maybe it's a playlist of songs that they loved or a recipe they made or a ritual that feels like them. And I love little rituals because you can really make that about yourself. Like you can bring in things that that might have meant something to your loved one, but at the same time, like we are the ones here in this physical world coping with their absence. And so it's okay to frankly make this about you and what you need to. I feel that way at least. So also taking some time to maybe not even meditate, although I do recommend and love meditation, don't get me wrong. But maybe if you just don't have time or you're not super comfortable with that yet, like just taking some deep breaths wherever you are, however you can, and just sitting and just being, being with your grief, being with the energy of that loved one, and however you want to view it or word it, just giving yourself a chance to sit and hear yourself and and hear them and maybe get clarity on like what I was saying earlier. Like, okay, is this, is this a tarot thought, is this a me thought, is this a my ego thought, or is this coming from somewhere else? Is there maybe some higher power trying to talk to me right now? Who knows? But if we never give ourselves that chance to just sit in this silence, we'll never really be able to hear it. And by the way, this is something I am personally working on. So if this is tough for you, like please know I am I am there with you. It's hard to just sit and be sometimes, but it's very important. Last couple things here: pulling out old videos, voicemails, photos when you need to feel closer to them, not necessarily as a crutch, but as just a really beautiful, tender act of connection. I did this a ton in the first probably year after my mom and dad died. It a little, I did a little bit after my mom died, but I think my dad was still alive and we were in such a fog that it really took, unfortunately, my dad dying for me to really like go through all those videos. I digitized them all, right? Like it was a very cathartic kind of healing process for me. And it was very painful watching those videos. Don't get me wrong, like I'm an only child. I was alone when I was doing it. Like it was not the brightest time in my life, but it it did make me smile. It did make me feel closer to them in some weird way. And it it made it feel like there was a little distance too. I won't say here in lie to you, but you know, more times than not, I think it it does jog our memory. It does remind us, oh, that that little mannerism they had. Oh, there's their laugh, there's the, you know, the tone and and texture in their voice, right? Like, yeah, it can be painful, but when we're ready, as always, none of these things today, by the way, you're again things you have to implement right now. It's always when you feel ready, but they can be very cathartic and healing, as I said. And let me tell you, I really wish I had more photos and videos. I I will get grievers and listeners of this podcast that will reach out, like, you know, what like I have a parent who is dying, or I have someone in front of me who is dying. What do I do? What do you recommend I do? Like, just you know, SOS help. And, you know, I'll I'll say several things, but like by and large, if I could say anything, if that is you listening right now, just my God, take all the photos and videos, do voice recordings, anything to preserve that, but also in that I've talked about this in a previous episode, so I won't belabor this, but that, but also be extraordinarily present and take that time to hold their hand and remember how it feels. Because I do remember doing that with my parents and I can feel their hands if I it's like in my memory, but like I can feel it as if I were holding their hand right now, too. And it's because I was present enough to remember that. And I made like a very conscious effort to be like, I need to remember this, I am not going to forget this. And I remind myself of that feeling pretty often. So it's it's top of mind. My recall of it is there, right? So if that's another just quick thing, if there's something that you just absolutely don't want to forget or a feeling or something, like I totally believe in like willing that into fruition and and almost like forcing our brain and our memory to remember certain things. And in a lot of cases it it can work, but sometimes it also involves reliving it often enough for you to keep the memory recall going. So anyway, just a little ramble, a little side note about that. But it's true, they can be very helpful. And also just talking about them out loud with friends, with family, a therapist, a grief coach like myself, or even just to yourself, because keeping them present in conversation truly is one of the most powerful ways to keep their memory alive. That's honestly one of the reasons I love doing this podcast, because I will have some amazing guests come on and we talk about their loved one and keep that loved one alive for them. And I also have a reason to talk about my parents alive. So, and it genuinely has helped. So anyway, just finding that community. You might laugh at this, but I always think of the Disney movie Coco, if you are familiar with that movie, where, you know, kind of the whole point is to keep talking about the loved one in order for them in that movie, for example, to stay on the ofrenda, to stay on the altar, right? That's kind of like how I think of it. And I know some fellow grievers who will literally talk to their loved one out loud, like as they're driving alone in a car or just like around the house. And I know that can feel a little crazy sometimes, but there's something to that. So honestly, zero judgment. I've done it before myself. Like if you find it helpful, feel empowered to do that. But if maybe the talking out loud doesn't feel super comfortable, again, that's where a meditation, five-minute meditation or five-minute visualization exercise or just five minutes of absolute quiet can be a really, really beautiful practice. And if you are someone who journals, try perhaps writing a letter to them. Tell them what you're remembering, what you're afraid of losing, what you wish you could say, right? Like anything under the sun that you just need to get out and put pen to paper. And by the way, I also know some fellow grievers who actually set up an email address, like literally for their loved one who have died. And they will just shoot emails to that address. So it feels like it's going somewhere and I don't know, going up into the ether and reaching them somehow. And that might be really cathartic for you too, right? There's no rules here. I like grief is nothing if not figuring out what works for us.

Permission to Grieve and Forget Details

SPEAKER_00 29:56

That all being said, I also just want to give you permission to not be okay with this forgetting. Even after hearing everything I've said today, like you are allowed to grieve the forgetting on top of grieving the loss. That is a very real and very valid layer of grief. And it deserves to be acknowledged, which hopefully we we did in this episode today. But genuinely, if you also just need some permission from someone today, just be like, I'm really upset about this, I'm angry about this, I'm worried about this. Like, my friend, consider me your ally. Like, I see you in that. It is really, really difficult. But here's what I want you to just hold on to from today's episode if you can. The fact that you are scared of forgetting them is such a form of love, and it is such a valid fear, too. I am right there with you. It is absolutely scary, and it really does make them feel so, so far away from us at times. And the thing is, you wouldn't be afraid of losing the details if they didn't matter deeply to you. And that fear is pointing straight at how much they mean to you even now. And that's a beautiful thing. Memory is imperfect and human and sometimes very infuriating, but the love underneath it that doesn't fade, right? That stays and they are in you, they they shaped you one way or another. And no amount of time is going to change the fact that you were lucky enough to love them and be loved by them. But it is also okay to be salty and be upset that we didn't get more time. And please know that I see you in that pain today because that is so very real. So that is all I have for you today. A huge shout out and thank you to the person that requested this particular topic. I hope you were able to tune in and listen to this one. But if not, if you somehow found this podcast or found this episode, I truly do hope this episode was helpful in some way. If it did resonate with you, I would so appreciate you sharing it with someone who might need to hear it as well. Let me know your thoughts around this in the comments wherever you're listening. I love to hear from you. Let me know if this is something that you are going through too. Like I would just love to hear your thoughts and just be a friend to you in your grief as always. And if you are looking for any additional support or just looking to go a little bit deeper with me, you can find everything at lossesbecome gains.com. This is all linked in the show notes as well, ways to work with me, all the good things. And in the meantime, I am just sending you a huge hug, and I will see you in the next episode. I am sending you a huge thank you for tuning in to today's episode, my friend. Visit lossesbecome gains.com for my blog, more coping tools, ways to work with me, and so much more. And be sure you're following along on Instagram and Facebook at Losses Become Gains, and on Instagram and TikTok at Life with Groove Podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already, and share this episode or this podcast with someone who could use it too. I'll catch you in the next episode.