I believe the difficulty you are having is simply due to the trauma that you are still experiencing in the loss of Dina. Only time will move your thoughts back to the happy times. It will come, though. Don't think your present state will last on and on. It will take a little time, but the good pictures stored in the back of your mind will surface little by little as you heal. Best wishes to you!

And as your daughter grows up, you will see her, and her actions.. You will remember her again.

I'm the same way. My husband died in March. He was always a large man. (Except for when we first met and he was 17 yrs old!) I can look at pictures before he got sick with cancer and think wow! he was really heavy. But the image burned in my mind is him really thin and weak looking. The weight loss began to transform him about this time last year, so for about 7 months he was really thin and weak looking. Which I didn't notice until looking back at pictures of the last year. I only saw his spirit which was healthy and strong. It will change I'm sure. Sometimes, I think of this as a form of PTSD. :)

I, too, believe you are suffering from trauma. The memories will come back, I feel pretty sure about it. For a time I could not remember the sound of my husband's voice. It did upset me and I had no recording of it but it did come back and I now can hear his voice again.

Have hope.

I do have dreams of my wife being healthy, but those dreams, as loving as they are and give me that feeling that perhaps this, what I am living now, is not real, make me cry in my sleep and I wake up crying, because I felt my wife again close to me, healthy and happy once more.

The images in my mind whilst I think of my wife tend to be when she was fighting cancer, the struggle mixed with the hope of beating cancer. I can not picture those moments in my mind too long, I distract myself from them. My wife told me to try to remember the good times, not the bad, not her having cancer. Too painful.

I don'r know if this will help you but this is what I do. Just above my desk here I have numerous pictures of her before she really got sick. Sometimes they are hard to look at but they me preserve the memory of what she was like before cancer. That's the image I want to be burnt into my memory, not the person that I was with in hospice. If you have to ask family and friends for additional photos. Lots of the ones I have of her are thanks to Johannah's sister.

I too have photo's at work and at home that I look at. At other times I remember our trips together and there I can picture her clearly, so maybe you need a specific event that you can recall. My wife got sick and was gone in a week so I don't have that long period in the hospital to think about.
Russ

I have pictures of my husband before and after his illness. I look at them all, but try to focus on the ones of him when he had some "meat on his bones". Many of the pictures that I have setting around the house are of earlier times when he was happy and healthy. I especially focus on these which helps me to get through my worst days.

At first all I saw was my husband in his frail body. It took me a while to get how frail he was out of my mind. But now I am at ten months and I see him more as he was before he got sick. He was a big man 6' 248lbs. I did record some videos on my phone so I could hear him when I wanted just in case I forgot. I have only watched them maybe twice. Because in my head I can hear his sound. I am sure I will listen and watch them again but I feel I will do so because I want to not because I want to hear his voice. If that makes sense. God Bless.

At three months, our anniversary, I ran away to the shore of Lake Michigan. Visiting places that were where life was wonderful for us. Margarita in the sun, lighthouses and walking the shores as we did. It felt like I had him back with me for a bit.
Like the end scenes of that TV show "Cold Case", seeing him again at the places and the smiles and memories of our trips there.

Your trauma is still new; and your mind pictures are the most recent memories you have, so it's only realistic that they are at the forefront of your mind. Be patient with yourself now and know that with time, you will replace these memories with happier ones. This path is a process and you will be better in days to come. As someone said on this site quite awhile ago, "time needs time".....allow that to happen. Blessings.

I too don't have a mental picture of my wife ( died in May this year after a 10 year fight with cancer ).

I was concerned that a lasting image of her was from the funeral home - myself, daughter and two sons, and wife's sister washed the body in preparation for burial ( its a custom in quite a few religions ). Then we wrapped it in cloth. There is no doubt that my wife's soul had left for the next life. I did not like the process, but we did it because she asked us to, and it was the last thing we could do for her.

Fortunately, when I think of her, I do not see that image, in fact I don't see any image at all. I don't see or hear anything. I try to imagine what she would say in certain circumstances, and the words come to my brain, but not in her voice.

So maybe my experience is different. My friend who lost his wife 6 years ago and only recently had dreams with her in them. She was not as he expected. She was just normal sitting on a couch and talking with him.

We are all different, I would guess.

Bob

I have seen only two images of my husband in 2 dreams, other than that I have only recalled 4 images of him at different times of our lives. I tried hard to remember but not so much comes to mind. Once in a while some memories come back as flashback, like this morning I just remembered how he would tuck the girls in bed and hugged them good night until the girls told him they are too old for that. He came to me feeling a bit rejected. LOL. Looking at pictures do help to bring back some memories. We have few pictures of him in early years because he was always behind the camera taking pictures of the family. I am glad I took more pictures of him in later years and I have a voice mail from him so I could listen to his voice and never forget that.

I don't think I saw my husband as frail as he was until shortly before he died. He was always the healthy one who excercised and ate healthy. My favorite food is hamberger, thick and juicey on a bun. :) Then he started having health issues with his heart and cancer, but he always bounced back. I thought he was indestructable. Then came lung cancer and ten weeks later death.

I remember looking at him at his service and thinking, "what happened to you?" My mental pictures in his hospital bed in our room haunted me for a long while. They are replaced with him now as strong and healthy as he always was. Sharon

Thanks all. I have 5 or 6 pictures of her/us at work and pictures up all over the house. Sounds like this is par for the course so I'll just try to be patient and hope they come sooner rather than later.