Beyond Forgetting: Your Child Lives

Do not be afraid

that you will forget, and lose your child again.

It is true, they go somewhere beyond our sight,

but you are here.

You are the field

where your child walked.

The impression of their steps is not a record,

but a change within the ground itself—

The way water changes stone

not by force

but by timeless belonging.

What you fear losing

was never stored.

It was received

the way the earth receives rain;

taken in,

made part of you,

becoming the very thing

that still grows and rises in you.

There is a knowing.

older than remembering.

Before your mind can reach

for what it thinks it holds,

Your hands already know

the weight, the feel of your own child.

Your body keeps

what your heart embraced.

The soul does not forget.

in the way we fear forgetting,

sudden, absolute—like a door swinging shut.

It forgets the way dusk forgets the sun,

Which is not really forgetting at all.

It only slowly becomes

a different kind of light.

So if, over the years, you cannot recall your child’s face with the precision

your grief demands, remember this: In your own face is every tenderness

you beheld in that sweet face.

The love that made you

is the love your child shares with you.

And you are walking in the world

carrying the shape

of everything given.

Your beloved is not growing further from you each year.

Your child is within you.

the way music

lives in the hands

of someone who has played it

ten thousand times.

The melody is no longer something you relearn,

but simply, and forever known.