To Live On

Shortly after Eliza died, my mom ordered two prints from an Etsy shop.  She framed one at her house and asked if I wanted one, too.  I said no.

The quotation says, To live on in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die.

I didn't want it, I thought at the time, because I didn't want her living on in my heart.  I only wanted her living and nothing else was good enough.

It still isn't.

But this week I asked my mom to send me the print.  I want to display something to honor Eliza's memory, and in order to do that, I have to acknowledge that she is living in our hearts alone.

For a while, I thought I would frame one of the photos we got.  But the truth is, I've felt conflicted about Eliza's pictures from the moment we got them.  On the one hand, I'm glad to have them.  I can look at them and see the beautiful baby she was supposed to be.

On the other hand, I can't look at them without crying.  She doesn't look like my Eliza.  She looks like, well, like a dead baby.  Her pictures make me feel sad, they make me cry, they break my heart into a million pieces because they represent not what she was supposed to be, but what she somehow--impossibly--ended up being.  I just don't want to put up those pictures.

But then I feel terrible for not wanting to display them.  What kind of mother doesn't want to look at pictures of her baby?

I asked my therapist this, tearfully, at a recent appointment.  She made a comparison that had not occurred to me.  If we've lost a loved one after a long illness, chances are that we have pictures of them from before they got sick as well as during their illness.  And typically the pictures we choose to display, the way we choose to remember them, are the pictures from before.  When they still look strong and healthy and happy.

When I chose pictures of Gpa V to post on his birthday, I could have chosen some of the ones that were taken after his cancer treatments.  But those pictures don't look like Gpa V the way I remember him.  He looks thin and pale and sick, and I remember him healthy and round and smiling.  So I didn't feel guilty about choosing other pictures.

The problem is, of course, that I don't have any other pictures of Eliza.  So this framed print is a way to commemorate her that is meaningful to us, and, I think, really beautiful.


Just the way I remember her.

My mom special requested this particular quotation--the artist will do any quotation that you like and she shapes it into a heart.  If you're interested, you can order a custom heart print here.  I think the poem I posted yesterday would be really lovely, too, but of course there are so many possibilities.