How memories die (and why they don't have to)
The loss of precious memories is accelerated as we lose touch with the people who lived them
I grew up with little-to-no relationship with my maternal grandmother. Partly due to family dynamics but mostly a deep language barrier we never overcame. Taj Sidiki was an immigrant from Pakistan who moved to the U.S. a decade or so after her kids had already immigrated. The time I spent around Taj (as she was most often directly referred to) in my childhood was mainly in a babysitting capacity. As an adult, the depth of our relationship lived solely in the form of 60-second obligatory phone chats that went like this:
Her: how are you doing, my son? (in Urdu)
Me: good, how are you?
Her: good, good. Your mom says you're doing well
Me: Yes, I hope you're well!
Her: OK, bye
Me: bye
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It wasn't for a lack of topics to discuss, as she was one of a handful who experienced the earliest recorded days of my family's history. Looking back, I largely blame myself for not learning our native language and exploring her life through more meaningful conversations. She seemed open to doing so, but I was more focused on my challenges trying to assimilate as a Pakistani-American, feeling out of place in both countries.
That opportunity is long gone, though. Our brief conversations went on unchanged for decades until she died in 2017. I attended the funeral as a spectator more than a participant. In 2022 my family began working on her Chptr memorial. One of our team members held Memory Parties with each of my parents, cousins, and other relatives, all of whom had much more profound relationships and experiences with her. I heard stories from her early childhood to her day-to-day life, where she spent most of her time with great-grandchildren. I heard about her favorite TV shows and snacks, how she laughed every time her great-grandson danced in the living room of his St. Louis home, and what it was like enjoying time and long conversations as friends with her. These were all things I missed out on while she was alive.
There were two standout moments for me in rebuilding her story in the form of a crowdsourced digital legacy. The first was the stories my parents recorded about her. For background, my sister and I have spent 40 years trying to get our parents to tell us a raw version of their life story. It's a project we've failed so many times it's comical. The primary resistance is a cultural practice of leaving the past behind. But, as I played video after video from her Chptr full of memories my parents shared of her, I got an unexpected insight into a part of their lives that has been, until that moment, locked away. In this forum, they freely shared details about their life stories through their memories of my grandmother. It blew me away that we would have been more effective if we asked them to tell stories about the other people in the communities they grew up with. In those ten or so two-minute clips, I learned more about my family history than in 43 years of conversations.
The second standout moment was hearing a memory so brief you would have missed it entirely. At the end of Taj's life, she lived in a retirement community in St. Louis (near her daughter's family). While there, and apparently for multiple days per week, she played bridge with a handful of women who were also community residents. Hearing that story blew my mind because, as someone who can fully understand Urdu but not speak a word of it, I couldn't communicate with my grandmother. So, how she got into this group of caucasian American women in their 80s is beyond me. That is the story I want to hear more than anything, but the only version I found was more of a "this is something she liked to do" summary, not one I could mine for details. The people who knew the story best were the nurses and caregivers working in the retirement community and even a few of the women themselves. But, five years after her death, those people were long gone as we were building her memorial.
And therein lies the problem with memories… they disappear with the people who knew them best. One of the lines I often hear from bereaved communities is, "I feel like I met my <insert person> for the first time at their funeral." That comes from meeting people you never knew existed, who share stories you never knew happened about a person you thought you knew better than anyone in the world. Those people who may have shown up to the funeral but with no familiarity with the rest of the group disappear forever as they are rarely brought into the fold more meaningfully. Without their person serving as the center of gravity, keeping their people in a steady orbit, the community begins to dissolve within minutes after the funeral.
The most crucial part of securing a person's legacy after death is to ensure the community they built. Invite them into a shared space so the context of their participation is always evident. Once collected, nurturing this community through seeking and contributing memories becomes effortless. This simple and often overlooked act could have allowed me to get the answer I was looking for about how my 4-foot tall, 88-year-old grandmother, who spoke broken English, engaged in high stakes bridge games with a group of midwestern similarly-aged ladies. It may also give me more insight into why she and I could never connect that way.
It's now six years after her death, and there are a few things I’m certain of. Our relationship was what it was, and there’s no changing it. The second is I find stories about her more fascinating now than I did when she was alive, largely because of how different my life and focus on family is now that Jess and I have two kids. And, finally, I wish I knew more about her weekly bridge games.
You can visit my grandmother's Chptr here.
Thanks for reading, and, as always, be good to each other.
Rehan
Founder x CEO Chptr