Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by swader999 1067 days ago
I've got a prism that I gave to my daughter when she was three or four. I made two round wooden discs for each end so she could position it just so on her window and put a rainbow in her room. The kid never got one mark wrong her last year in grade nine. She won every science fair too.

I have a giant 40 pound ball of elastics she made. It was an extended dad joke as she asked me if I could get her some elastics one day and I didn't look up from my work and just said yeah sure. Mom wasn't impressed when she found out what was in the beaten up heavy box that was dropped shipped all the way to our post office. She kept it in her locker at school and lovingly tormented her teachers by 'bouncing' it in the hall from time to time.

With her gone now it doesn't feel like these are heirlooms, it actually hurts a bit to have things like this around that are returned back to the previous generation. Same thing with her race skis that fit me and I used one day last season.

The stories these tell remind me of her best times but also tell me they weren't enough. So there's bittersweetness in all of it that's left behind.

2 comments

> With her gone now...

Oh, I'm so sorry...

In the last few years, I've lost my sister and my mom, and very recently my dad. We all miss him so much, it hasn't been a week yet; nevertheless, I can't be too sorry that he left, because he has stopped feeling the constant pain of the missing daughter and the departed adored wife.

Losing one's parent is painful, but losing one's children is so unnatural that nobody should ever know such a deep horror.

Yeah you miss them everyday. I get glimpses of her from the edge of falling into the dream state sometimes and she's glowing, radiant, calm and confident. She even hugged me one time. That gives me some peace. There's still pain and when I'm good with it, it motivates me to try harder, love more. Letting it fester and run around in my mind leads to true suffering so you got to turn that off and push through it.
edit: I'm bad at reading things, best wishes to you :)

I do find mementos from lost people to be quite sad. But also kinda fun.