projects designed to memorialize

i have been thinking since monday night about this memorial project for bob that was discussed and whether or not my involvement is the right thing for me at this moment in time. when the idea first came up, i was excited other people wanted to do something to memorialize our comrade and the politics of his life (the politics that we share, the activist history of our community), and i went to a dinner meeting on monday to talk about these ideas.

the project that we did brainstorm (if it comes to fruition) is something i think entirely appropriate – a book project chronicling the history of the east vancouver activist community, using stories from his life as jumping off points. both a memorial, and yet relevant to activists who will come later on down the line and want to better understand the development of our movements……

so the project itself recorded on flip charts – this, i have no problem with and a part of me wants involvement in some capacity. on the other hand i fear working with other people on a project like this has the potential to damage or at least alter the memories i have not only of my friend, but those of our friendship i hold very close at the moment. something i had not really considered before now is the perspectives of others could affect my own in a way i don’t think is positive for my mental state.

i don’t want my memory of my friend to consist of months of sitting in meetings talking about what he would have wanted, or what type of memorial would be most appropriate. i don’t want to hear what he really thought about a project i was working on when he was alive (but didn’t tell me).

what i do want is to finish a project i started three years ago (totally unrelated to his influence, but later supported by him), as a way of honouring the work we had talked about doing together. this project belongs to no one except myself, and has very little to do with him aside from touching on themes he understood better than most people i know. it does not involve exposing my feelings to those who are strangers, it does not involve rehashing arguments i had with him. and although it is a way of personally working through my own healing process, it has nothing to do with healing or grieving.

it has everything to do with going forward, as an individual, as an activist, and as part of a movement that has its hills and vales and sometimes needs a compass. although the people who are involved with this memorial are those who i hold a great deal of respect for, i am not sure i can participate in the way i intially indicated i would.

how odd to have discovered this new thing – the depth of my grief, the protection of memory at the cost of eschewing a project designed to memorialize, the recognition that a relationship between two people is a third entity that no one else can really understand.

and i thought i already knew everything. huh.