Photographs and Memories

I had reason to pull out an old photograph the other day. It is a photo taken a few weeks after Daphne and I had been attacked and I am standing with a friend outside a house she rented, me needing a new, safe place to live. In the photo I am still battered and bruised, left foot crushed and casted, not being able to stand upright due to so many fractured ribs. I am expressionless. Hollow. My soul had been shattered.


I began exposure therapy years ago and one of my biggest concerns was that all the rehashing of those events would desensitize me so much that I would no longer remember Daphne and her pain and subsequent death. It seemed disloyal and something else I can’t find the words to describe. Not that I wanted to be constantly controlled by the emotional pain, but I also didn’t want to forget it either. I especially don't want to forget her,


It was once a very difficult photograph for me to look at. Now, although I recognize that I am the girl in the photo , I find that I am having difficulty remembering who she was. Who I was. This year, for the first time, Daphne’s birthday came and went and I didn’t remember it. For years I would go into a deep depression on that day, and all anniversaries connected to her or that day. In more recent years I would go to her grave site. This year it passed without any commemoration or even notice.


I don’t know if this is just a product of time passing that would have happened anyway, or more a result of the desensitization of exposure therapy. Do veterans lose their memory of buddies killed in battle? Do I need to be more intentional in recalling memories like I now need to be intentional when putting down my keys? I don’t know. All I know is that photos can fade and discolor very quickly if not stored and handled properly. I think the same must be true of memories.