Unforgotten
By Jamie Lim
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
When someone plucks a seashell from its coastal resting place, there is a faint indentation left in the sand.
It is a subtle reminder that a seashell once inhabited that space. Then the tide comes and washes it away,
resetting the space that had once cradled that crisp little shell.
There is nothing that can stop the tide—not the scuttling crab, not the barricaded castle of sand, not the
wind sweeping the ridges of the waves.
I would be lying if I told you that I would stop the tide for you. Even if I were to plant my feet in front of
where you once lay and curl my toes against the coming waters, I could not stop the tide from wiping
away your indentation.
So instead, long before the tide comes, I will stare at the mark that you have left and memorize every
direction that the grains have shifted to accommodate your shape. And when the tide comes, I will step
back and allow it to take what is left of you in the sand. I will feel pain from reliving the moment that I
lost you, but I will not fear losing you again, for I have studied you so intently that it is almost like you
had briefly returned to press yourself into my memory, where no tide can erase you.
And I will clutch you tightly in my mind and bend down to the ground and twist my finger in the sand to
recreate your indentation. It will be sloppy because my fingers are clumsy and trembling against the
heavy responsibility of preserving you. It will be lopsided and uneven and asymmetrical, different from
the perfect round little dip that you left, but it will be there nonetheless, deep and plain to see.
And when I leave the shoreline and trudge up the beach, I will bend down every once in a while and press
my finger in the sand, so that wherever my footprints wander, you will be there, too.
It is a subtle reminder that a seashell once inhabited that space. Then the tide comes and washes it away,
resetting the space that had once cradled that crisp little shell.
There is nothing that can stop the tide—not the scuttling crab, not the barricaded castle of sand, not the
wind sweeping the ridges of the waves.
I would be lying if I told you that I would stop the tide for you. Even if I were to plant my feet in front of
where you once lay and curl my toes against the coming waters, I could not stop the tide from wiping
away your indentation.
So instead, long before the tide comes, I will stare at the mark that you have left and memorize every
direction that the grains have shifted to accommodate your shape. And when the tide comes, I will step
back and allow it to take what is left of you in the sand. I will feel pain from reliving the moment that I
lost you, but I will not fear losing you again, for I have studied you so intently that it is almost like you
had briefly returned to press yourself into my memory, where no tide can erase you.
And I will clutch you tightly in my mind and bend down to the ground and twist my finger in the sand to
recreate your indentation. It will be sloppy because my fingers are clumsy and trembling against the
heavy responsibility of preserving you. It will be lopsided and uneven and asymmetrical, different from
the perfect round little dip that you left, but it will be there nonetheless, deep and plain to see.
And when I leave the shoreline and trudge up the beach, I will bend down every once in a while and press
my finger in the sand, so that wherever my footprints wander, you will be there, too.
Jamie Lim is currently an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying chemical and biomolecular engineering. She aspires to be a physician-scientist and bring hope to patients with chronic diseases. In her free time, she writes poetry, designs houses on The Sims 4, watches African wildlife documentaries, and dreams of bringing home a Doberman puppy one day.