Make memories last
How will your child(ren) remember you when you've died ?
- Will they know who you were ?
- Will they know how you lived, what kind of person you were ?
- Will they even know your name ?
When a parent dies while a child is still young, the memories a child has of his/her parent are limited.
Very often when they grow up they will remember little of the parent and their early loss is hard to bear. It has a lifelong impact on a child.
When a child, after a parent's death, has little or nothing tangible from the parent to cherish, and with which to keep the memory of the deceased parent alive, the impact of this early loss can be made much worse.
This website, ‘Remember me when I'm gone’ (a worldwide, internet-based, non-profit project), aims to motivate and inspire you, knowing (or expecting) that you will die before your child(ren) have grown up, to create a personal memory-booklet about your own life as a gift for your children.
Both starting a memorybook as well as working on it, can help you come to terms with your impending demise and might open up communications within your family about your death, thereby allowing each of the family members to come to terms with your disease and the inevitable consequences of this.
The personal memory book can make a child see who you were, what you hoped and dreamed for and the love you have for your child will show in the care with which you create your own memory book. It will give your child deep comfort during mourning and it can contribute to diminishing the emotional scarring which could handicap your child for the rest of his/her life.
The template provided by the ‘Remember me when I'm gone’ project can be used both by individuals as well as by organisations working in the field.
The booklet is meant for every parent - wherever in this world - who knows that he or she will die shortly and would like to leave a very real and personal keepsake for those who are most dear to them: their children.
A continuous effort is being made to translate the memorybook template into every language in the world. New translations will be made available through the website as soon as they are finished.
At this moment, the template is available in 95 languages ranging from English to Russian, from Cantonese to Bambara.
The project is a no-budget private initiative started in The Netherlands in February 2005.