What happens when we lose our loved ones before we lose them? This happens to so many of our families. Our loved one experiences a slow decline, cognitively, or physically, that takes place over years that feels like forever. The decline crowds out earlier chapters.

Our mother has not been herself for so long I can’t even remember what she used to be like.

It’s been so long since my father was who he really was, I can’t remember him before his dementia set in.

What do we do with this pain when we lose our loved ones before we lose them?

We are about to say Yizkor. Yizkor offers us a poignant way to flip the script.

It is true that we sometimes lose our loved ones before we lose them. But because of Yizkor, it is also true that after we lose our loved ones, we still have them.