Forgetting To Remember

My mother passed away last Christmas and since then I´ve thought of her practically every day and felt sad. I say “practically” because just recently there have been happy days when I´ve been so busy or so preoccupied that I´ve forgotten to remember her and then afterwards felt grief-stricken and guilty. Of course I know in my heart that I´ll never forget her. I´m sure that this occasional “forgetting to remember” is just a normal part of the grieving process. 

Then just yesterday I remembered this poem by Christina Rossetti which has comforted me because I know for sure that the last two lines express exactly what my mother would have wished for me. Here it is in its entirety. 

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad. 

So I´ve been keeping these 2 lines in mind and trying to leave the sadness behind by starting to create a new scrapbook kit in her memory and the first photo I´ve been building it around is the one I restored recently and showed in my last blog post...with one tiny difference which may be obvious only to me.

This project may take some time. It always takes me ages before I´m happy with any part of a kit, or with anything for that matter, though I´m trying hard not to be so ridiculously self-critical. I wish I had someone who´d slap my wrist occasionally and tell me to "leave well alone”. That was always one of my mother´s – many - favourite sayings when I was growing up which I´ll try to take to heart in future. Sometimes less is more and very often things are fine just the way they are.

(Maybe I should have heeded that before I messed with the photo....)