Guilt over lost photo

May 5, 2010 7:25 AM

I lost a photo and now I am wracked with guilt. How do I get over it?

After my grandmother passed away nearly two years ago I found a picture of her that I had never seen. To me this photo captured her spirit and soul. I carried the photo with me in the cover of a notebook that I use for work. I cannot find the photo. I cannot even remember the last time that I saw it. I have changed locations several times in the last year and have stuff in storage all over the world. I've searched my workspace and my room. I am sure that it must have fallen out and I didn't realize it. I feel so guilty and it's all that I can think about. This photo meant so much to me and I stupidly lost it.

How do I get over this?

posted by Juicylicious to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

Your memory of the photo is more valuable than the photo itself. You can access the photo every time you close your eyes.

If this isn't enough, hire a sketch artist or a painter to recreate it for you.
posted by thorny at 7:30 AM on May 5, 2010 [5 favorites]

Your memories of your grandmother is more valuable than the memory of the photo or even the photo itself. Try to keep those memories.
posted by jehsom at 7:38 AM on May 5, 2010

All objects leave us, eventually. To hold onto an item not attached to your physical person for an extended period of time is the exception and not the rule. You clearly loved your grandmother very dearly for both the photo's discovery and loss to have such a profound effect on you. No one can ever rightfully claim you have offended her or her memory by losing it. You are not bad or stupid for losing it; it wasn't a child and you could not have kept tabs on it at each and every moment, nor should you have. The photo did not contain your love for her any more than a wedding ring contains the love of one partner for the other.
posted by griphus at 8:00 AM on May 5, 2010 [24 favorites]

I agree with what's been said and think engaging an artist is an outstanding idea.

What is more, you don't know beyond doubt that it is gone. Try, when you close your eyes to remember the photo (and other memories of her!, to hope for the photo's serendipitous discovery some day.
posted by jgirl at 8:07 AM on May 5, 2010

Your grandmother would understand and she would hate to see you upset over this. Plus the photo may turn up. I hope it does!
posted by applemeat at 8:14 AM on May 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Agree with everyone who said that the memory is what is really valuable. But since the photo was a thing you could hold onto, make another thing. Now, while you still remember it, write a little essay about it - what it looked like, what it said about her, what it meant to you. Or if writing is not your thing and there's something else you can create based on it (a painting, a song?) then do that. That way you'll have another concrete representation of that particular memory.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 8:25 AM on May 5, 2010 [4 favorites]

There seems to be something very buddhist about this scenario. Perhaps your guilt is trying to mask your grief over losing your grandmother? You lost both your grandmother and now this picture. I think it is okay to grieve both. All things and persons are fleeting. (I also love the idea of having a sketch artist recreate it.)
posted by turtlefu at 9:10 AM on May 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

There has to be a reason why you feel guilty, rather than just sad, disappointed, kicking yourself, etc.

Some speculations: maybe you feel guilty because carrying the picture around was supposed to make up for something? Like maybe you feel like you didn't spend enough time with your grandmother, or you are afraid she may have felt that you didn't really care about her in the years leading up to her passing, and carrying the photo around is a way to prove to yourself that that's not true.

In other words, could it be that the whole situation for this photo functions as a metaphorical version of what happened with you and your grandmother? You think you lost the photo in the same way that you lost your grandmother -- you were distracted, thinking of other things, working, traveling, etc. -- so your guilt over the photo is displaced guilt over your grandmother. Even more so, because the whole point of carrying the photo around was to rewrite the past, but now, history has repeated itself.

Or, maybe this is wrong and you were very close to your grandmother?
posted by AlsoMike at 10:31 AM on May 5, 2010

Try writing a poem or story about what was going on in the photo, or about her life during the period it represents. Even something totally fiction. As long as it expresses the same spirit and soul that the photo did to you, then you have created another artifact to help you hold onto those memories. Like everyone has said, it is not about the artifact itself, but the memory it jump-starts.
posted by Juicy Avenger at 11:35 AM on May 5, 2010