Where's the key???

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about my Mom.

I have meant to come back and write more about her, but I can't.
It's not that I don't want want to, I literally can't.
My memories of her, the happy ones, have ceased to exist for me.
This bothers me.
A lot.

I know we went camping, had parties and did all kinds of fun things, and that my Mom was the one mostly responsible for it all.
I know because I have seen pictures of us doing all these things.
I know too because my Brother's had filled me in on a lot of it over the years.
I know from them.
I have no memories of my own.

What do I tell my boys about their Grandmother?
I sure as hell don't want to tell them the memories that I DO have!
Watching a young, vibrant woman deteriorate and wither away under the harshness of chemo treatments and radiation.
Helping her crawl into the bathroom and clean her up because she was too weak to do it herself.
Listening as she screamed in agony and writhed around on the floor clawing at her skin and wondering who we (her children) were.
I don't want to tell them that at her funeral I had to be medicated to even make it in the door, or that I crawled into her casket to be near her.

But these are the things I know.
I no longer remember the sound of her voice, or her laugh.
I barely remember her face!
I have pictures on my walls, but no longer in my head.

In my search for 'the story of me', I am trying to reclaim a chunk of my past that seems to be lost, or locked away somewhere.
I want to be able to tell my children about her.
I want to know her.