Remember Me

The experience of forgetting things is a mixture of amusement, frustration and irritation.

It can be amusing when we resort to our ‘senior moments’ so as to mask the shame for forgetting trivial things. It can be frustrating when we lose track of important ordinary household or office implements (e.g. car keys, glasses, passwords, etc.) that can distract us from our duties. It can be irritating when others around us become collateral damage to our forgetfulness (e.g. missing an appointment, a chore or some favor asked of us, etc.)

With age and illnesses setting in, remembering things may not be as easy as before. We have to be simply and humbly embrace this moment and allow material and human aids to help us to continue remembering things.

But to forget people, especially our loved ones who have died, is far worse than forgetting to update our profile picture, to charge our phone, to get the latest NBA scores, etc.

Lately, two animated films, The Book of Life (2014) and Coco (2017) focused on the importance of remembering our loved ones in the next life. When people here on earth forget their deceased relatives, then they cease to exist also in the so-called spiritual realm. Of course, this is only according to the movie.

In reality, the person’s soul is immortal, but its state in the other life is of complete insufficiency. This means that whatever they were capable of doing for and by themselves in this life no longer applies in the next. This is the perennial teachings of Scripture and the Church’s tradition.

Imagine how it frustrating it feels not be able to do the simplest things by oneself in this life? Sick and disabled persons are totally dependent on their caregivers for almost everything. But despite their condition, they can still manage to pray for themselves and others, offer up their inconveniences for others and more!

Once we die, however, the capacity to pray and merit for ourselves is no longer possible. We may pray and intercede for our loved ones on earth but we now count on the prayers of those on earth for us who may still require purification in purgatory.

A forgotten person in purgatory has to endure something that no ordeal in life can equal: being delayed from man’s greatest fulfillment, heaven! One may be forgotten on earth, but he can still manage to move on in life. But in the next life, the state of profound helplessness will be eternally felt.

This is why we are encouraged to constantly remember our loved ones through prayer, our sacrifices and work. Thus, we journey together, and at the end we shall lovingly embrace one another because in reality we have never parted ways.