Journal to remember, Write to be remembered

When I was 15 years old, my mother died of cancer. My little sister was only 11 years old then. And both of us don’t remember a lot about our mother. No details, no stories, no real situations that we shared together. It was only recently that I realized that the loss of memory might, after all, be caused by the traumatic experience of losing our mother.

Sadly, these memories can never be restored or recollected. I wish I knew my mother better, that there would be a way to know more about her now. Except for the stories that are told about her by our father, there is really nothing left. She has never written a diary or any other form of personal notes, all traces of her personality and thoughts have vanished with her.

So here I am, a mother of a 2-year old boy and if I died today or even in 15 years, what would be left there of me for my son to remember?

And this is what really got me thinking. I want to create something that gives him and maybe someday his very own kids, a chance to read about who his mother and their grandmother was.

I want my son to get the chance to feel our close bond even after I am gone. But I want more than that, because what do you remember about your life when you were 2 years old? I guess nothing really, just like me. That information is also lost on the way as time goes by. To be honest, I don’t even remember much but some highlights of the last 10 years either. We live our lives and as we progress, we lose sight of our past experiences, accomplishments and daily achievements.

We are so eager to strive for a better future that we forget to preserve what we have now, just in case we want to look back one day.

These were my initial  thoughts and my motivation to start a project to preserve the presence: “A Journal to Stay – 365 consecutive days” is the journal I keep for my son to keep memories of a time he won’t remember. These are memories I keep for myself as well, when one day soon I will have forgotten all the small details about our daily life and even once I might forget almost everything due to dementia or just progressing age.

 “A Journal to Stay – 365 consecutive days” is a diary-form journal  for my son that I write every night before I go to bed: about his day and about my day, about our wins and obstacles, reflection on motherhood and life. Some days it might only be a few words and some days it will be a whole bunch of fantastic anecdotes, travel plans or insights.

Some might say that that is just a diary, but to me, a diary is mainly a chronological record of daily events, whereas a journal is also dedicated to personal development and reflection. In this project, I strive to lay out my personality and its developments over the course of time, untamed and unvarnished. 

In the end, it will be a snapshot of me and my family’s life between 2025 and 2026 – and I will be happy that I have done it.

This is the true core of “A Journal to Stay”.

Yours,

Viktoria