Remembering can be painful, but sometimes not being able to can hurt too

My mom had a total of 4 children, I am the youngest. One child, the second died as a stillborn. The oldest child (who was at least 15 years older than me, yeah my mom is old), died when i was around 3 or 4. This just leaves my sister (who is 3 years older than me) and myself.

I have the fewest memories of my eldest sister. My mom said I didn't even really know what was going on. The only thing about the funeral I remember is my mom falling down. The only thing about my sister that I actually remember is that she owned a deck of cards that were green with a gold outline on them.

People say that remembering someone who died is painful. No doubt about it, it hurts because the more time you have with them, the more you miss them.

But what annoys me is when people assume that because you don't remember much about the person, you are not going through any pain.

The tv show Full House often showed this. The character Michelle was only a baby when their mom was killed, it was pretty hard for her as she got older for 2 reasons:

1. she had no mom like all the other girls in her school
2. she has no memories of her mom.

Yes, having no memories can be bad too. Its painful sometimes not being able to remember much about a loved one because of your age. It hurts that people assume you wouldn't be suffering because you don't have much memories thus not much of a connection with the person.

But we deal with a different kind of pain. We have to deal with the fact that we didn't get to know them. Its painful when others can talk about their memories of someone and you have nothing.

You see, a little child who was too young to understand death then, ends up grieving later on in life. They too have to come to terms.

So never assume that because someone is small or little that they can't possibly be in pain for not having much memories or time with the person to form much of an attachment.