Memory boxes and future cards

Hi Sarahbg 

That sounds like a lovely idea but not something I've done.

I had a look at your profile before I replied but as you haven't completed it yet, I'm assuming that you have an incurable cancer. If that's right, can I suggest that you might also like to join and post this in the living with incurable cancer group as I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions from the members there. If this is something that you'd like to do, clicking on the link I've created will take you straight there.

While you're waiting for more replies, it would be great if you could pop something about your diagnosis and treatment into your profile as it really helps others when replying to you and also when looking for someone on a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.

Hi Sarahbg 

This is something I have currently started on, so I’ll tell you what I’m doing, and see if you get any ideas from it. I won’t be doing future birthday cards however as my children are adults. 

My youngest daughter gave me a book recently called “Mum, I Want To Hear Your Story”. It’s effectively a kind of journal, full of blank pages, with each headed by a question. Things like what is your earliest memory as a child?, where did you go to school and what games did you play?, what were your parents like? I can’t tell you how much fun it has been completing this, remembering my past and reliving memories. You can buy these books online and tell your own story in them. They will find out so much they didn’t actually know,

I will be leaving a letter for each of my daughters, reminding them how much I love them, how they will carry me in their hearts forever, and how I will always be by their side.

Each will have a special keepsake box, with a special piece of jewellery, and some of the perfume I always wear so they can close their eyes and remember the smell of me. There will also be some little mementoes of things which were important to me that they can keep forever. Little shells from a special beach with all the memories they conjure up, some  little things I have collected over the years. Things which are special to me. 

I have done all the practical things, rewritten my will for the 3rd time(!), sorted out my funeral plan paperwork with instructions on what to do, ensured my pension providers have my wishes, and made a list of bank details, passwords etc. Everything is filed and in order.

Now I’m onto the “fun stuff” if you can call it that-creating memories for them both which will live on when I’m gone, where they can open their boxes and feel the love with which they were made. I want to be able to make them smile-reminding them of the time I fell down a hole in Cyprus on holiday, how we had fun riding on bikes down a mountain in Spain, that sort of thing. I want the sadness they will feel to be helped by being able to smile and remember good times. I want them to understand my life is not defined by cancer and has been a good one.

Sarah xx