Preserving Memories of a Loved One? 527
An anonymous reader writes "My wife is dying of metastatic (stage 4) cancer. Statistically she has between one and two years left. I have pre-teen daughters. I'm looking for innovative ideas on how to preserve memories of their mother and my wife so that years down the road we don't forget the things we all tend to forget about a person as time passes. I have copious photos and am taking as much HD video as I can without being a jerk, so images and sounds are taken care of (and backed up securely). I'm keeping a private blog of simple daily events that help me remember the things in between the hospitalizations and treatments. In this digital age what other avenues are there for preserving memories? Non-digital suggestions would be welcome, too."
Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry to hear about your wife's condition. Truly.
For your daughters, I would recommend that your wife starts a diary, recording her thoughts. The little things, the big things. Looking at video and pictures is one thing, experiencing the feelings of a loved one as they wrote it is another. Together they may give your children something to look back upon for the rest of their lives.
Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Interesting)
Videos of birthdays, vacations and special events only go so far: you've all seen those videos, camera pans over the people and they're all smiling and laughing, but there's no sharing there, no real connection, it's about as generic as can be.
A video blog set to private on Youtube would be perfect. She can just turn on the laptop webcam and talk about whatever she's feeling that day for a few minutes. My wife and I did that awhile ago when we were on a strict diet and it's very interesting to go back now and see how we looked and felt.
Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thoughts. (Score:4, Insightful)
For the anecdotal evidence of that, my grandpa died 7 years ago, and when we got his handwritten journals a few years ago they meant more to my family, myself included, than everything else combined. I can't exactly explain why, but that's the way it was.
Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Store these mementos forever.
But also realize that you simply can't hold on to her, and trying to hold on will increase the intensity and duration of your pain.
Memories are supposed to fade over time. Whether we like it or not, the fading helps us to heal, and to face the future.
As happy a place as the past is, it is unhealthy to try and live there forever.
Keep the mementos, but don't fall in love with them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
save a sweater or shirt with her smell..
Re:Thoughts. (Score:4, Informative)
Great suggestion. I have one from my father. He's been gone 12 years, and one in a very long while I'll pull it out and spend some time in the past. If you do this though... be sure to store it in several layers of plastic. One won't be enough over time. 12 years and my dad's smell is just about gone.
Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, I recommend taking a few minutes to listen to the "This American Life" episode where a mother dying of a terminal disease left letters for her young daughter to be read annually. From the story's description, "At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects."
You can stream the episode from http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/401/parent-trap [thisamericanlife.org] (I'm recommending the "Letter Day Saint" act 1 story).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Thoughts on preservation (Score:3, Interesting)
Make sure you have an remote backup of everything digital and a safe local copy ie. not on windows machine that accesses the internet a lot. I recently had to help out a family who'd lost pretty much all of their family photos when once computer lost data. Also at the moment I'm setting up a linux machine for a lawyers office after they had a trojan go through and make a mess of their windows machines. Almost lost 12 years of documents. Either an online secure storage site or dvd's at a relatives house coul
Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to offer a different opinion.
Instead of worrying about remembering her later just to do your best to be with her now and do whatever you can to make her limited time better.
Stop with the videos and photos. She's not going to want to be remembered in this state. You and your kids aren't going to forget all about her when she's gone.
Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Focus on recording her memories, not yours (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife lost her grandmother a few years ago... here are the things she wishes she could have gotten from her before she passed:
The story of her life : her earliest memories, what she remembers of her parents and grandparents, her brothers and sisters. All this will be relevant to your daughters once they grow up a little more and have children of their own... they'll want to know more about their family background and characteristics... and a lot of that information on your wife's side of the family will be best delivered by her. If you do http://www.geni.com/ [geni.com] or any other genealogical mapping thing, that might be a good way to start filling in blanks.
It's a good opportunity to just set up the camera / recorder somewhere out of the way, and forget about it and have a pleasant discussion face to face. I'd even go so far as to recommend that you get a friend to conduct the autobiographical "interview", because people talk about different things to outsiders than to family... I've always found out more interesting things about my own family by listening to them talk about that kind of thing to strangers.
I've sure you can think of other interview questions, but here are a few to get started:
Have fun! Not everyone gets the opportunity to make peace and say goodbye...
Re:Focus on recording her memories, not yours (Score:5, Interesting)
This, this, this, this and this!
I lost a non-immediate family member to cancer in the recent past. She did not want pictures or video taken of her, she wanted everyone to remember how she looked before. What she was willing to share, and what made her happy to talk about, was stories from childhood and other reminiscing. Got her siblings together, and just talked. I got to sit there and just hear stories about my parents from before I was born, about my grandparents, and other branches of the family that I have never met. It was touching, and it kept her from being too sad for just a little while. But do not push the issue, and make it a chore.
We don't know the OP's wife, so none of us can make real suggestions about what to record or preserve, or how to go about that. Her feelings, and those of your kids, are what you need to think about. If she doesn't want to talk about her childhood, don't push it. If she does, and the kids don't want to hear it, don't push them to. Maybe you can get her to write about things, video blog about them, or just all sit around and talk and share. Yes, there are things that your kids may want to know later, but what ever you do, don't make this time with your wife into the equivalent of a childhood 8mm christmas film.
Unless 8mm christmas films are what your family enjoy. I, personally, don't care to watch my childhood as recorded on film. Gives me the creeps.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have one photo of my father, age about 12, with his dog. The stories he told about the troubles he and the dog got into in a small town in Iowa are absolutely priceless.
Re:Nobody needs die of cancer any more (Score:5, Insightful)
People like you disgust me. It's bad enough that the OP is losing his wife without scumbags like you trying to bilk him out of money.
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I fucking HATE people like this, trading on desperation. They remind me of the Laetrile [quackwatch.com] wackos in the 70's and 80's. It's no more legitimate than the frantically dying who spend their last few pennies going to Lourdes, [smarter.com] or giving money to "doctors of healing of the Lord." [barbaraomalley.org] My wife's mother did this when my wife was 12 and her description of the outright robbery by the assholes who run the place and the surrounding "guesthouses" [tripadvisor.com] made me nauseous.
He claims "in vivo" success, then spouts some BS anecdotal
Re:Nobody needs die of cancer any more (Score:5, Informative)
The orthomolecular biochemists
This word doesn't mean anything in scientific circles. "Orthomolecular" is a relatively new fad term for holistic nutrition/medicine. Examine here [orthomolecular.org] for an example.
have a unified theory of cancer and it's reversible now.
There is a unified theory of cancer, it primarily states that living things get cancer in the same way that iron rusts. It is inevitable, as a consequence of the fundamental properties of the system in question. It is not "reversible", a nonsense term in the biological context, and every specific cancer will require a different specific treatment.
Salvesterols
Google "salvesterols", 256 hits. Google "salvestrols", 35400 hits. Neither term is used in chemical/biochemical/molbio literature. The basic concept is that all "diseased cells" have specific enzymes which will convert specific plant-derived salvestrols into poisons, thus killing the bad cells. Evolutionarily, there is no way this would be maintained. The first mutant cell lacking this special enzyme would proliferate and the salvestrol would be of no use. See here [salvestrol.ca] for a representative site.
exploit the CYPB1P1 metabolic pathway; the Cytochrome P450-1 enzyme converts them to
There isn't a "CYPB1P1 pathway". CYPB1P1 is an enzyme involved in the oxidative breakdown of a variety of substrates. These enzymes are often used by animals to detoxify minor toxins from food. In the case of Aflotoxin poisoning, these enzymes are responsible for the production of potentially fatal liver damage by modifying the initially neutral compound into a potent mutagen/carcinogen/toxin [nature.com].
picotannins
The word "picotannins" doesn't exist in the chemical/biological literature, or on the web according to Google. Perhaps you meant tannings at low ("pico") levels? Tannins are plant compoinds and are not synthesized by any known animal metabolic pathways. At low levels, some tannins may have benificial effects on diet. In larger ammounts, they tend to be poisonous to animals not specialized in consuming them. Specialized animals tend to have enzymes in their saliva to bind and inactivate tannins before they can be absorved in the gut.
which selectively, in vivo and in vitro, kill only tumor cells.
Not exactly true, but since technically the chemicals you're speaking of don't exist, I suppose I can't say.
I've met end stage lung cancer patients whose cancer has been rerversed.
This is wonderful news for them and irrelevant to your claims.
I'm not interested in any nay sayers or claims of quckery. I'm just not interested.
It is good to know you've decided you don't need to learn anything about a topic to which you obviously have no expertise, before making potentially life-changing decisions based on that erroneous assumption.
Contact me directly if you need more information or sources; I can point you to (free) biochemists who can explain this much better than I can and offer guidance. It's extremely important to avoid sugar; whereas our cells use atp for energy, cancer cells use sugars directly.
Cancer cells cannot use sugar "directly" in the way you imply, nothing can actually. All cells use ATP for energy, with a minor sprinkling of GTP. Some human cell types (brain/neurons) will only accept sugar from the blood as a food source, while others (muscle/skin/etc) will also accept amino acids, cholesterol, and triglycerides from the blood to use for food. Your liver actually synthesizes sugar (glu
Interview with question/answers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interview with question/answers (Score:5, Insightful)
Record her talking about how she felt when she met you; when and how you proposed, your wedding day, your honeymoon.
Record her feelings when she found out she was pregnant with each daughter, and when they were born.
Record what she loves about each of you individually and the ways in which each of your daughters reminds her of herself. Having that identity link is so important (my parents died when I was young as well).
Also consider having close friends and relatives record their memories while they are fresh.
It may require a few takes to get this done without tears but I feel that's important.
a few takes? without tears? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Watch the movie My Life to prepare, and for tips. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107630/ [imdb.com]
And bring kleenex, you will cry.
Old school (Score:5, Interesting)
Non Digital: Handprints in clay...
Re:Old school (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd suggest that you combine this idea with plans for a really great day out - make it so that later the handprint piece is a springboard into the memories of that day together.
film (Score:4, Insightful)
a simple 35mm film camera (one time use if you have to) developed into prints.
Re:film (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:film (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you explain more about why you think having the roll of film is so important? My wedding was shot digitally, and to be honest I like knowing that there are 5 perfect copies of the original shots in different physical locations so I know I can never lose them. I'd be concerned having only one set of "original" negs - knowing that any copy of them is of lesser quality. I certainly don't think the photos themselves are any worse for being digital.
Digital Prints (Score:2)
I'm a hobbyist photographer. I agree with the film people who say you should print.
However, I don't see that you have to use film. It's important to remember that you can go to the photo store and get prints of your digital photos, too (last time I went to have a roll of film developed they couldn't get it done in an hour because they were too busy doing prints of digital photos...) Photo store prints will likely last longer than anything from an inkjet for that matter.
I've looked through various storage so
Don't lose out on experiencing her life with her (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't lose out on experiencing her life with he (Score:5, Insightful)
No mod points, but this ^^^^^.
I lost my wife when we were 37. She went out visiting one night, and never came home.
Spend the time you have left with your wife, and the children with their mother *creating memories*, and not memorabilia.
I'm sorry for your family, that you have to go through this when the kids are so young. Be strong, man.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have many memories of doing yard work with him or sitting on the back steps going over the financial pages of the newspaper. Probably one of the few four year olds who knew what a P/E ratio was -- knowledge that served me well in the dot com bubble, I might add.
I may not have a photo of him, but fee
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Find someone younger and hotter and take her to the funeral.
This facinates me; what kind of person writes something like that and what is going through their head when they do?
Watching videos is passive (Score:4, Insightful)
Do an old fashioned album of the places you've been the things you've seen, then sit with your daughters on your wedding anniversary and tell them stories. Your story telling will make those memories come alive. Relive the joy of her being alive, not the pain of her death.
Put photographs, little bits of whatever, theater tickets, and so on. My father in law did this for my kids as he was dying while they were being born.
Great family history and lots of memories in those albums.
Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Interesting)
The best thing I had from some older relatives (now gone) were CDs of them telling stories. One of my cousins took the time to get a few of the aunts and uncles together on the phone and asked a few questions to get them to reminisce. After a few minutes they forgot about the tape recorder and began really talking to each other. That set of CDs one of the nicest remembrances I have of them. My wife wishes she had done this with her parents. They grew up during the great depression and had a lot of interesting stories on the way things were and tales of every day living. Unfortunately her mom developed Parkinson's and lost the ability to speak clearly, and her dad died of a sudden heart attack, so we lost all this oral history, as well as the sound of their voice.
put some footprints in concrete (Score:4, Interesting)
On a back porch or whatever. Then the kids can stand in their mom's shoes and compare their feet.
It does help make a connection.
Handprints are more convenient and can hung on a wall if you do them with plaster in pie tins. This also makes them portable in case you move to a new house.
In theory you could make molds of hands, feet, whatever. But people seem to see more realistic depictions such as this or lifesize cutout standees as being creepy. Not so with hand/footprints.
Re:put some footprints in concrete (Score:4, Interesting)
On the same line of thought, you could make a death mask, or a couple of them.
It's not as creepy as the name might suggest and doesn't require the subject to actually be dead.
It was a project we did in one of my art classes in high school. My mom collects masks, so I gave mine to her and it hangs on her wall with many other more exotic masks.
The process is fairly simple and quickly described in this article [ehow.com]. In my art class, we took it a step further and used the plaster mask as a negative and later filled it with pottery clay, baked it, glazed and baked it again. I glazed mine black, but I'm sure that a ghostly white might be appropriate for the situation.
Making the mask negative (mold) is something that can happen in less than an hour. With a little more work you can probably make one that is re-usable out of other materials, but the plaster style negative is good for making only one ceramic mask. I'd suggest one per child, maybe more.
I'm sure that if the goal was described to someone at your local pottery shop, the appropriate materials would be suggested.
Re:put some footprints in concrete (Score:5, Interesting)
When you sit on the bench, you see that the grave marker, runnig the length of the bench, lies where the feet would rest. One one side of the marker is an adult-sized pair of shoeprints, on the other side is a child-sized pair of shoeprints.
The grave marker instructs the sitter to sit down and tell the deceased child a story.
*sniff*
Ask her to write? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps she may want to leave something written, her memories. I have been talking to my dad about doing precisely that for years, not pressing but not stopping mentioning it from time to time. I don't want his life and that of his ancestors to vanish in background noise. I think it's fair to want a record of what the passage of those people through life was like, even if neither of them won a Nobel prize or became president of the country.
On the other hand, perhaps what remains for you to do is to live the time she has with her and your children. In other words, it's good to preserve things as you are already doing, but don't let that take away time or attention from the life that still has to be lived. Find an equilibrium.
Finally, I salute your courage and attitude.
Careful, don't overdo it (Score:5, Insightful)
You might forget to actually live with her while that's still possible. To make memories instead of trying to preserve...the preservation efforts.
Which is impossible to be anywhere "complete" anyway, so just take what's good, what you see is happening; let her guide it (in a preferred form). And the rest involved will specifically remember what's worthwile to them anyway - not everything there is to remember. What does it matter if you couldn't really remember it at will?
(or even "what does it matter" in grander sense - for example, what can we tell about our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother? You know, the one from the side of you father, then grandfather, then great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, great-great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. The basics would do - century, continent, language...
That won't change thanks to "digital age" in the way people imagine, IMHO; at most roughly as an input to statistical approaches / etc.)
Well, if somebody is really determined, cryonics might work...eventually.
Don't Do It (Score:5, Insightful)
People die, life moves on. Detailing her daily life so that you can remember everything will keep you from doing that. Instead, make a log of your important memories with her, and work on making new ones that you and her can cherish for the rest of her life.
Re:Don't Do It (Score:5, Insightful)
Well said. Memories are supposed to fade. It's part of how we cope with loss.
Cook Book (Score:3, Insightful)
Being Italian we tend to associate with Food. When my wife lost her mother we've spent the past few months finding recipes from my mother-in-law and building a family cookbook. Now when we make those dishes those memories return.
I am not really sentimental but ... (Score:2)
First, on the sentimental note - I saw a TV show a few weeks ago about some little girl who was diagnosed with a disease that killed her.
She wanted her family to remember her, so she wrote a ton -- no one knows how many, but thousands -- of letters, and hid them in various places all over the house.
Her folks and siblings were still finding those letters years after she was gone. As I said, I am not sentimental, but this video kinda shook me.
So, maybe you need to do something like that - that will be a nice
Re: (Score:2)
So, maybe you need to do something like that - that will be a nice memory and a surprise when you find it. Maybe better if you don't know what it says, too.
Not to sound cold, but that sounds like a great idea until you imagine what it'd be like to be wandering around the house, suffering with the pain of loss, only to have the scab ripped off while randomly organizing a bookshelf or rifling through the pantry...
Don't record your life, live it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, you are wasting your time behind a camera. There is no innovative technological solution to immortalizing the dead. Everyone who suffers that kind of loss winds up forgetting, and later recalling little moments.
Take a cue from the movie 'Up'. Keep photos and cherished items. Use the tokens you preserve to jog your memory once in a while. But spend the time you have left with your wife fully engaged and enjoying every tiny slice of life as much as you can.
Make something, anything. (Score:2)
Re:Make something, anything. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can, ask a friend to capture videos and photos some of the time so that you can spend the time you have left without being too busy documenting things.
Also, if you have the opportunity, you should consider clinical trials of experimental treatments. Even if they don't help, she'll be providing a lasting legacy by helping improve medicine so that others---maybe even your daughters---won't have to suffer the same fate someday. And if you can, consider a complete gene sequencing. It could provide useful information in the future for genomics studies related to certain types of cancers, again, potentially helping save your daughters from going through what your wife is going through. It's not much, but it's a legacy that might just have a huge impact on your kids someday.
And consider having her record some personal messages for each of the kids at various stages of their lives. Maybe a message for when they have their first dates, for when they lose their first boyfriends, for when they get married, for when they get divorced and remarried (okay, maybe not that last one)... you get the idea. And, of course, one message telling them goodbye. That's the hardest one of all, but it's also the most important.
One final piece of advice: leave nothing unsaid. Live life with no regrets.
"The Last Lecture" (Score:4, Insightful)
Would your wife be interested in doing something like this? I assume privately, but maybe she'd want to make it public.
Make her smile as much as you can... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make her smile as much as you can and get as many moments all together as can, this will last your daughters and you a lifetime.
Dwelling upon the past... (Score:2)
...is seldom a good idea.
With all respect to your beloved wife and the wonderful person she undoubtedly is - it's better to remember the good things and the good times you had together when she was well.
The bad thing about remembering and missing loved ones, is that you'll refresh your memories about them to a degree where you miss them so much that a sadness will dwell inside of you and possibly make life much harder than ease your pain.
This effect is much worse in kids (I was a kid too, and learning from
Put down the camera. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have your wife write her thoughts to your daughters, and you, and help her write them if you have to. Keep journals around, but don't be too pushy. It's the rest of her life, so let her choose. Letters for important future events for your daughters could be really nice.
More importantly, put the camera down, stop worrying so much about the distant future, and worry about the time you have now. Don't use it too much to plan to remember. Use it to live.
Do something fun (Score:3, Insightful)
The most fun, absolutely wonderful things. You, the girls, and your wife. While her health will allow it. Take a trip, for instance. And don't make it all stressfull, and don't invest it with too much meaning. It's a fun jaunt, the whole family
Those memories will last.
Important occasions video or letters (Score:3, Insightful)
A message saying she is proud, that she remembers when she did those things, a bit of motherly advise, a lot of love.
Let her do it, and back off. (Score:2, Insightful)
(I'd say I'm sorry, but I don't know you, her, anyone around you and I although it's bad, I can't really make myself feel anything).
In short. You're not the one that's dying, it's just not up to you. Let her do whatever think it's appropriate (telling her anything about it would be just imposing), and keep your own memories, however you want them (blog probably, although your head would suffice). Don't overdo it - otherwise your risk killing parts of you and your daughters in the process.
And, you seem too d
The best memories come from shared experiences (Score:2)
Know the whole person (Score:2)
I lost a parent as a young teenager. My siblings were tweens. We have lots of peek-a-boo and Saturday morning couch fort memories, and don't get me wrong, we cherish them. But what I really miss now, as a grown woman, was getting to know my father as an adult. He was a great father for us as children, but we were too young and/or too sheltered for really open conversations on those thorny adult issues that most parents dread. The man I've gotten to know
Audio/Video Interview (Score:2)
I cannot imagine losing my spouse and am sorry about your family's situation.
I lost my grandparents quite a while ago and my parents much more recently; I think about and miss them often.
While they were still alive, one of my relatives sat down with my grandparents and parents and "interviewed" them in much the same way as one would a guest on a TV show.
Because of the format and comprehensive list of questions asked, I consider these recordings to be one of the best reminders I have of my [grand]parents' li
spend time with her (Score:2)
It's really not that complicated: spend time with her if she wants to. Don't constantly shove a video camera in her face. Keep in mind that when some people are ill, they may actually need quiet time, so be sensitive.
FFS, he asked for suggestions, not advice! (Score:2)
All this "don't forget to live" crap is just people showing off that they're oh-so-much-wiser than the original inquirer. I can't think of anything more infuriating to someone in his situation. If you don't have a suggestion to make ALONG THE LINES OF WHAT HE ASKED FOR, then keep your pop psychology to yourself.
I do: physical objects. Does she have jewelry? She should plan who it's going to go to, especially since your kids are both girls. If there's anything she really cherished, be sure you know what it i
Technology is OK (Score:2)
Given the age of the children, their adult memories of specific details might be fuzzy, but all they'll need is a hint to bring it back vividly. As a middle aged adult, I have a lot of people now I've lost, and a faded photo is all it takes to bring them back in my imagination. So what you should do is build memories and create triggers that will recall those memories.
What I'd suggest is this. Have the family start making scrapbooks of things you've done that are memorable. They could be big things like
Make the memories with her (Score:2)
Focus on activities you can do together as a family. I'm not sure how active her health allows her to be, but simple things like trips to the park or the zoo can be a wonderful experience and an event you and your children will remember the rest of your lives. If it's hard for her to get around, sitting with her and reading a book or telling stories from your past can be nice as well. These memories may become distorted, but in a positive way. They'll be little pockets of joy in what are otherwise very
There will come a day... (Score:2)
If you want to remember how she lived, it will become harder and harder for you to do so as the inevitability of her death becomes more and more obvious. You're already treating her like she's about to die; is that the way that you want to remember her?
Focus on who she was before all of this. Preserve her life, not her death.
How about a (virtual) shrine? (Score:2)
When my dad passed, I kept his pickup as a kind of shrine. It had his personality because of how he decorated it, the things he kept in it for work and play, and the memories of places we went in it. Eventually I passed it to another family member, and of course it will someday be gone. But for a while, it was a cool way to have an occasional visit with ol' dad.
Considering the poster's question makes me think that a virtual shrine should be do-able: a small 3-D world with representations of places and t
Re: (Score:2)
opensim DIVA would most likely be best (use XAMMP to get a portable WAMP stack)
Quality over quantity; memories over archives (Score:5, Insightful)
I would suggest not video taping anything other than the occasional interview; perhaps discretely video record your wife reminiscing with your daughters about their early childhood, and hers.
Instead of focusing on digital memories, spend that time with your wife and daughters forming memories of real events. Frisbee in the yard, swings, running through sprinklers, hiking in the forest. Learning to cook new things together, card games, board games, sewing.
We remember 'firsts' the best, usually. Do new things. Let your memories blur the edges of your wife's condition; your daughters lives will turn out the better for it, their memories of Mom that much fonder.
Stop the video for your kids (Score:3, Insightful)
The last thing I wanted to remember about my mum when she fought a long battle with cancer was her final days. She finally died when I was 18.
Things are not pretty in those final years. Pale, tired, sick, moody but mostly high on drugs. And that is what you are leaving as a final memory to your kids. She was not that woman.
Go through existing photos of when she was a kid and make sure the photo albums (physical or not) are well documented and chronologically ordered. What was happening at the time, who was she with, how good of time was she having and how happy was she.
Go through photos of when the two of you met and dated. Document that. The happy times and the not so happy times. The two of you should go through each photo and describe the event.
I, for some reason, have only three photos of my mum. Two when she was sick (not so fun to look at) and one just before she met my dad. I would love to know where she was, what she was doing (was it during uni on break?), etc.
Keep some good DNA samples (Score:4, Insightful)
Your wife's DNA may contain some beneficial medical information for your daughters, and it may help them to have access to it later on. Further out there, you never know what we may be able to do with DNA in 20 years. It doesn't seem impossible that DNA could be used to generate 3D portraits of deceased people. Imagine if your grand daughters could someday move a slider around on a computer, and see grandma as a child, then move it again, and see how grandma might have looked had she lived to be 80 years old.
Let's get real (Score:2, Insightful)
Do some black and white photos (Score:2, Insightful)
they last very long.
Digital stuff is going do die at some point - and you're wasting resources trying to preserve and migrate it every couple of years.
A print-out photo-book with some written comments of her is worth a 1000 videos.
It's been shown -- memories of smell last longest (Score:2, Interesting)
Your wife should make sure to wear her favourite perfume regularly and buy some bottles for the girls -- put the bottles away until they get a little older. You could also take her pillow and blankets and put them in one of those plastic things that you vaccuum the air out of. Take the blankets and pillow out when one of the girls is feeling badly (after a bad breakup with a boyfriend, say) and let her curl up on the couch with them. If you reseal them in the bag every time, the smell should last quite a wh
Experience. (Score:2, Insightful)
Parent Trap (A must-hear) (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out Act One of this episode [thisamericanlife.org] of This American Life [thislife.org].
Act One. Letter Day Saint.
Rebecca was 16 years old when her mother Elizabeth died of cancer. But before she died, she wrote letters to Rebecca, to be given to her on her birthday each year for thirteen years. At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects. David Segal tells the story. David is a reporter for The New York Times. (14 minutes.)
Best example? (Score:3, Informative)
Professor Randy Pausch's last lecture [youtube.com].
This is a very interesting and moving lecture that he essentially put together for his children when he was dying of cancer.
Just saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clothes (Score:4, Insightful)
Save some of her clothes, her favs, both dress-up and casual, including shoes. Put em away well. The little girls will grow up and get to see and maybe wear some of mom's clothes later on. And especially the wedding dress. Who knows, one of them or a grand daughter might want to wear it when they get married. Oh, and her jewelry, you'll need to divvy that up later on when they are near-adults as well. Next, some of her fav books, stuff like that. Any hobbies she had, the creative stuff, keep a representative sample.
But don't make a mausoleum inside the house, don't go that far, and don't keep everything, donate it away. Eventually you will meet a new person, they will be uncomfortable if the whole house is a mausoleum dedicated to the person they aren't and never can be, if you get my drift..
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Along this line, things.
I have two such things, a screwdriver and a (cheap) meat cleaver.
The screwdriver I borrowed from a friend before he got cancer, and in the hubbub surrounding his sickness, never got around to giving it back. Now it's my favorite screwdriver, and every time I use it or even see it, I think about him, remember some of the things we did together, his wicked sense of humor, etc.
The meat cleaver belonged to my mother-in-law, and there's a story behind that as well. It's too long to tell
Mum dying (Score:3, Insightful)
My mother died a little over a year ago. Photo's are great, but in my case the videos don't do a huge amount for me (although it is interesting to watch how she moved). My brother has her cell phone though, so when we call him we get her voice-mail message....I really miss that voice. Dad went through her travel diaries and typed them up so we all have a copy of those. That's nice because it records the way her mind worked in some of the happier times of her life. The smell of perfumes may also be important, coconut cream always reminds me of her and that phase happened when I was a very young child. Shopping lists, notes, and such are also important. Sometimes it is the way we do little things are say the most about how we were.
Beware of recording to much of her in her final stages. They need to remember her as she lived, not as she was dying. Good luck though. You are in for a rough ride and it will take a long time to regain some sense of balance.
Don't ruin the time you have left... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you spend all your time worrying about "preserving her memory" instead of enjoying and getting the most out of your time left with her, you will regret it for the rest of your life. I've had two friends lose their spouses to cancer and they both made the same mistake. They got so caught up in "I gotta record this!" and "oh wait I have to get the camera!" and all that, they ruined all of those special moments by reminding themselves of what was coming.
My advice: live the moments while you're in them. Don't ruin them by trying to save them for later.
Note and learn to cook her favourite Recipes (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm surprised not to have seen this...
Note and learn to cook her favourite recipes! My Mum did this for my Grandma as did Grandma before her. It still brings a smile when I cook something I enjoyed visiting 'Oma' as a small child. Its a nice bit of family history/tradition too ... the recipes are hand-written and some have fun stories ('the day your Dad ate 2 whole cakes') associated with them.
leave messages for milestones. (Score:3, Interesting)
A friend of mine died nine years ago from colon cancer. She had a then 4-year old boy when she passed.
There were a handful of things that she did for her son that were pretty well received as he grew older.
She left letters or recordings for him at various milestones. Graduation. age 21. Age 25. Wedding. Etc. Nothing too specific, but things talking about how she hoped things turned out for him.
A recording of her singing Happy Birthday, that she gave him on CD. He played it every year until he was 12. After that, I don't know if he continued to play it, but it was a nice touchpoint for him as he grew older.
That's really about it. Too much stuff, I think, and the survivors have issues getting over the loss. And too much past stuff, and people seem to feel a little out of touch. It truly makes people think they were loved if their parent thinks about future events before the child even does.
That's all I have.
Analog thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
My librarian friend's strongest argument for making analog copies on paper was the passive nature of that medium. You can tuck the paper away for 30 years and it's still good when you take it back out. Digital archives tend to require active copying from time to time. Digital files from 30-40 years ago are largely unreadable today, even if the medium is in good shape, for a number of reasons: the necessary hardware is no longer available, operating systems don't support the file system, the file format is no longer supported. In general, preserving a digital record for 30 years requires that intermediate copies be made.
However, archival work is something that can be done anytime in the next few years. Worry about other things now.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a retarded question for slashdot.
You might as well have asked it on 4chan FFS
Re:mod parent down (Score:4, Funny)
Re:mod parent down (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not looking for insightful comments from a focused group of individuals who have been through this. There's plenty of that. I am asking a group of people in a community I have long lurked/participted in. Of course I understand the responses are going to run the gamut, but I usually find there is a post or two that are insightful that are from members of a community I obviously must feel reflects me in some manner. So your responses were expected along with the many other types of responses that make this community what it is.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm, I'd probably make some kind of complicated puzzle (or set of puzzles) for her to solve, with a "map" leading to "some buried treasure." (I don't literally mean a treasure map to pirate gold. Too much chance the professional treasure hunters would get involved.)
Lot's of stuff written by me along the way, and just difficult enough that she'd be working on it for a while.
Obviously, the treasure should be something somewhat valuable but probably more for sentimental value than real money.
The fun is in th
Re:A good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
As a supplement to the above, I advise submitter - I've been there as a kid, as a pre-teen. Whatever you do, do not force the issue with your children. When your wife passes, do not force your wife's memory upon them and insist that everybody constantly juggle her memories in each others' faces. Let them be sullen and withdrawn if they want to. They will recontextualize at their own pace, in their own ways. Attempting to shove their dead mother in their faces may be misguided and akin to pouring lemon juice on a wound. Just be supportive of each other and don't force anything.
And later, when you begin to find romance again, do not force your kids to call her "mom." Nobody will ever replace mom.
* It would be easier if I knew that she died. But, in the throes of schizoprhrenic psychosis, a product of an old-skool "tough-love" family who kicked their children when they were already down, she was last seen attempting to kill herself. She was erroneously released from the nuthouse on her own recognizance, never to be seen again.
** My friends sometimes tell me that they fucked my mom. I tell 'em that it must be the reason that they smell like malt liquor and piss, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
yeah this is my idea too - or write a bot that can read diaries and blogs and then interact with a user. Sort of like megahal but with more awareness of grammar and logic. I'm working on one to encode the best parts of myself :)
Re:Personally (Score:5, Insightful)
I have copious photos and am taking as much HD video as I can without being a jerk, so images and sounds are taken care of (and backed up securely).
I'm not going to go to the extreme of the parent, but it sounds like you are spending a lot of time trying frantically to freeze your wife forever. I'v never been through something like this, but maybe everyone would get more out of it if you just--i don't know--forget that she is dying and spend as much natural time with her as you can. Then you (and your kids) will have memories of Mom as she was when she was happy with her family, rather than hours of video with an elephant in the room.
Re:Personally (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree here. I lost my father when I was 21 in a car accident - my whole family (mother and 2 sisters) were in the car and he was the only one injured.
Spend time with your wife. Let your children experience her as the naturally do. Drop the camera and live the moment. Take pictures when you would if you didn't have the knowledge. The reality of the recording media can sometimes dilute the memory. I'm sure some of the memories of my father did not happen the way I remember - but they are my memories and I look back at them fondly when I think of my father. I'd rather remember the memories fondly rather than potentially have a "digital archive" show me that it really didn't happen the way my memories recorded them (or potentially having my current view of life polluting the memory.)
We as human beings have survived many many hundreds of years without digital archives. We remember or ancestors. You don't want to look back and think - "I should have been on the other side of that camera."
Re:Preserve them forever! (Score:5, Funny)
I recommend dipping them in bullet-proof lucite!
With all due respect, the correct answer is carbonite. Please surrender your troll and geek cards on the way out.
Re: DON'T Preserve them forever! (Score:5, Insightful)
I lost my mother from a cancer about 9 years ago... And I still miss her and I'm still crying at some times... For example, when my son was born (she would have liked so much to know him).
But I would NOT recommend you to take any step to preserve her memories... Because all that you'll do will be artificial, it won't be her.
You'll have to move on, be ready to be grieving for about one year, the time needed to hit each anniversary and special dates... And it'll be the same for your daughters. And you'll have to help your daughter going through that, by having they think about something more happy (you may talk with them about the good times before the illness then go on to good times they can have with you (their dad) now).
Creating a "sanctuary" is probably the worse thing that you can do... My only advice would be to enjoy all the moments that you can still enjoy with her, try to have some good time during these grim moments...
Except for her last weeks, my mother was on chemiotherapy... We changed your life to adapt to her cycle... 1 week ill, 2 weeks tired and 1 week when she was feeling well. We didn't celebrate birthdays and other on the official date, we learned to celebrate them during that good week. And we had quality moments in family during these weeks.
Don't talk or think about her death, it won't bring anything good (well, to be a little cynic, you could get run over by a car tomorrow and die before her), try to enjoy all what you can.
Also, keep in mind that by taking photos and videos, you're making memories of her illness, not of the good time BEFORE her illness... And even if memories fade away, the most important won't disappear...
Find the nicest picture of her BEFORE things went bad, and put it NOW in a good place in your living room, if possible among other pictures of the family. Even better, find a picture where you're all together. By doing it now, while she is still there, you won't be making a "sanctuary" but displaying family pictures... It'll help to remember without linking it to the "souvenir" (sorry, I'm french-speaking) of when she died.
You may forget her voice, you won't forget her words. You may forget her face, you won't forget that you loved her smile/hair/... You may forget the last moments, you won't forget the happy one. No need for a time capsule for that...
Re: DON'T Preserve them forever! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm dealing with a loss of my mother as well. I tried doing video recordings, but the problem I faced was that they weren't terribly candid. My mother was always a camera whore however, so in one sense it was natural for her to seek and find the camera in the room, then play up to it; in another sense I was never able to capture the candid moments when mom was just being herself.
The OP has likely weighed the worth of capturing the last moments of his wife's life, knowing full well how painful the moments will be (the visual effect of her illness, etc.).
I recommend creating new memories and documenting those with recordings. Go out, take a day trip. These things need not be expensive. Record yourself spending time together be alive and not merely acting. Write letters to each other. Share old memories, remind each other of your life spent together. A written letter, not some blog entry that only exists digitally, will have more value. Create physically tangible pieces of memory, be it toys you buy each other, or polaroids you shot of each other. Things you can hold, things that don't require a computer, will mean a lot to you.
The point of all this is to create new memories that don't anchor you or her to the illness. Make the illness a non-issue.
As for preserving old memories. I recommend that any video or audio you have be archived losslessly to very durable storage medium. I recommend digital tape. Even my old VHS analog tapes have proven more durable that things written to DVD-R. But do keep copies on more easily consumable mediums such as flash cards and DVD-Rs. For photos, I recommend developing your photos, archiving lossless originals as above, and then keeping high quality JPEGs for easy digital access. For personal belongings, I use durable plastic containers that can be sealed. Zip-loc bags are useful too.
The point here is you'll find yourself wanting to archive a lot of diverse materials. Being Slashdot, we immediately think about media, but there's other things too like stuffed animals, christmas ornaments. etc. A wide variety of things. Also, I recommend photographing those things. I would also digitally scan letters and other documents. Save things from your outings. I have movie tickets. They bring back a lot of memories.
It's a lot of heartbreaking work. At the moment, I can't even look at the material I've collected, but I know someday I will want to revisit it.
Some ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Without being overbearing, now is the time to ask questions and make a permanent record of memories she has of her childhood; her experiences are what made her the person she is today, and this type of thing will really help other family members understand her a bit better. And once the person has passed away, this is otherwise almost completely lost unless an old acquaintance takes pity on you (and that's really not something to count on.)
I put together one of the deepest family genealogy sites on the net for my family - many thousands of well researched individuals going back to the early 1500's - and if there's one thing I've learned, it's ask [whatever] before someone passes on, or you'll probably never know.
And you know what? People are usually pretty happy to tell you the story of their life; all you have to do is ask questions and be a good listener. From the standpoint of your kids and later descendants, just add making a record. If photos are involved, make sure you carefully associate the stories with the photos.
Also from a genealogical standpoint, make sure you know as much as she does about her family connections. This information is all too easily lost.
You say you're making HD video; I suggest you make some audio recordings too. We can't always be watching a display. You might have her read a favorite book or poetry, or something else that can be listened to long-term while you or whoever is doing something else. Also, people are often more comfortable off-camera, especially if they are debilitated.
Re:Some ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
This is VERY insightful and I wish I had mod points today. All but only distant members of my family are gone. I have very little left to remember anyone by and it hurts a great deal. What I regret most is the loss of my grandparents and of not being smart enough or mature enough to have sat them down and had them tell me stories that I could record. One of my grandparents in particular had quite a few adventures and had told me about WWII and some of the engineering he did. I have these only in memory now and would so much rather have had them recorded and heard more of them. But I was a kid and later on he got Alzheimers which left him unable to even recognize me or his wife. By then it was too late! I do not recall ever having heard such interesting stories from my parents although I'm sure I did. My parents were all taken early from me and again I was too young and too immature to think this far ahead. I tell others not to make the same mistakes and not to procrastinate - you never know what tragedy may befall someone you care about when you least expect it. To be left with only fleeting memories and to know nothing of the childhood of your family is awful, memories need to be passed down. Stories of rides in biplanes, trips where tires were repaired over and over on rocky muddy roads, WWII stories that were never reported in the papers - all of this should be preserved and more if possible.
It twists my gut to hear what this person is going through, if there's one disease I'd like to see cured it's cancer followed closely by debilitating disease like Alzheimers that rob a person of their mind...
Re:Preserve them forever! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. The whole idea sucks. Preserve your memories by spending time CREATING memories. This is about as useful as travel or wedding pics - nobody wants to see more than half a dozen at one sitting.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This might also touch on one somewhat accepted (how true? - hey, take what you want from it) observation about memories and time perception, BTW. When life gets monotonous (hence also not many memories to speak of; going too far with preservation efforts might push things somewhat towards that area...), it drags on while it unravels...but seems to be a blink of an eye when looking back.
Filling it with experiences tends to make it seem like it flashes by, OTOH. But it's suddenly so full, so long, when rememb
She's not YOUR wife (Score:4, Insightful)
If the OP wants to choose to remember his wife in this way, and help preserve a legacy for his/her daughters by recording everything he can about her, than that is his choice. The fact that this information is not of interest to YOU is entirely irrelevant. This data isn't for you to consume, and I'm not sure how you could possibly evaluate the worth of this.
Given that his wife is in Stage 4, and the daughters so young, the ability to create memories is likely not great, and getting worse. If recording memories is all he can put together, so be it.
SirWired