Keeping the memory

Getting closer to the sad time of year, when the weather reminds me of the feeling of that day. Going through birthdays, holidays and all those special times is not easy. But the anniversary of someone's death is perhaps the worst, especially if one was right there at the time. "Family at the bedside" it says in the obituaries. But it was me there. I was there at her beginning and at her end. I save all the books she gave me, all the postcards, birthday cards, little gifts -- I can never part with them. There is a video of her online, when she was interviewed about part of the treatment available at her hospital. I can't bear to watch it -- but want to. She also spoke at a medical conference, giving the patient's point of view on treatment. So far as I know there is no visual record of that. But there must be people who heard her and were moved by her presentation. So a little piece of her goes on -- I hope so anyway. And her blog still exists, painful as it is to read that. But it worries me that someday there will be no one who remembers her. Already, I'm sure, the girls in her Guide troop have moved on, maybe not forgetting her completely but not missing her anymore. How many of her close friends think of her every day still? People who knew her casually won't think of her at all. Does the doctor remember her, the nurses who cared for her or do they learn to blot out those memories? Do her teachers remember her or even know that she has died? Soon there will be a conversation pit for the Guide camp, in her memory. My cousin's daughter and son have done the Avon Walk in her memory to raise money for breast cancer. One of her friends has dedicated a book to her. My son and I have dinner at a local fast food restaurant in her honor -- she would have had a hot dog and peppermint stick ice cream. Little things. I wish more people had known her.