THE CRUELTY OF RETROSPECTION: When Looking Back Becomes a Way of Living

Our thoughts are driven by the past. Learning from or acting on the past, and basing everything in the present and future on it, is called retrospective learning.

As individuals, societies, and the world at large, we thrive on retrospection. Almost every aspect of our existence depends on our ability to look back, dissect, evaluate, understand, and draw conclusions from what has already happened. Progress, in many ways, is an accumulation of lessons learnt from the past.

We look back to evolve, to improve, to prevent, to predict and ultimately, to thrive.

There is, however, a cruel irony in this otherwise essential human practice.

As a mother who is now a year and a half from the day I buried my little girl, I thrive on retrospection too. Except that my retrospection serves no purpose in changing an outcome, improving a future experience or preventing a recurrence.

It is an involuntary and relentless exercise to revisit a past that has already taken away a future that I envisioned.

This, perhaps, is one of the cruellest laws of nature, that the human mind is equipped to learn from the past, but is powerless to change it.

Since Aabi's last day, my mind has developed an extraordinary propensity to revisit the moments, circumstances, conversations, events, and minute details surrounding her little life. I find myself dissecting things that I would never have given a second thought to before. Moments are replayed, sequences reconstructed, decisions examined, and possibilities explored. What happened? Why did it happen? Could it have happened differently? Was there something I missed? Could I have recognised something sooner? Was there a different path that might have led us elsewhere?

The questions are endless. The answers, often nonexistent.

The mind, it seems, does not understand the finality of death in quite the same way that reality imposes it. It continues to search, to investigate, to connect dots, and to construct alternative narratives. It approaches the past almost as a problem waiting to be solved, as though enough scrutiny, enough recollection and enough understanding might eventually reveal something that has so far remained hidden.

And yet, there is no corrective action to take. No opportunity to revisit a decision. No possibility of changing the sequence of events. No second attempt at getting something right.

The very mechanism that makes retrospection so valuable to the living world becomes an instrument of extraordinary torment to a bereaved mother.

The world retrospectively analyses to change its future. A bereaved mother retrospectively analyses a past she can never change.

I often wonder whether this is the mind's way of negotiating with the unimaginable. When faced with an outcome so devastating that the heart struggles to comprehend it, perhaps the mind seeks refuge in the familiar territory of reasoning. It searches for causation because causation offers the illusion of control. It looks for explanations because explanations might make the inexplicable feel less incomprehensible.

There is something particularly difficult about retrospectively examining the death of a child. Unlike many other experiences in life, where hindsight can offer a valuable lesson, the hindsight of a bereaved parent is accompanied by the knowledge that the most important outcome has already occurred. Every possibility explored exists alongside the permanence of what cannot be undone.

And then there is the burden of hindsight!

We revisit moments with the knowledge of what happened afterwards. We examine our former selves with the awareness of an outcome that was then unknown to us. We question decisions made.

Is it an inherently unfair exercise?

I was Aabi's mother then, just as I am now. I loved her then with the same immeasurable love with which I carry her today. I lived our days as they came, responding to the demands of motherhood, embracing the ordinary and looking forward to the tomorrow that every mother instinctively assumes will arrive.

I did not know that those ordinary days would one day become the subject of such extraordinary scrutiny for me.

I did not know that a seemingly regular, normal moment would become something I would revisit hundreds of times. That a conversation, a gesture, a little expression or a particular day would acquire a significance I could never have anticipated. I did not know that the past would eventually become the only place where I could revisit the entirety of our shared physical existence.

And perhaps this is another cruelty of retrospection. It gives ordinary moments an extraordinary significance only after they have become inaccessible.

I now understand why bereaved mothers can become so consumed by memories. We are not simply remembering our children. We are attempting to reconstruct a world that once existed, a world in which our children were physically present, where their voices filled our homes, their little routines shaped our days, and their existence was woven into every expectation of tomorrow.

For me, Aabi's two years and eight months are no longer simply a period of time. They are an entire universe of experiences that I continue to revisit. I find myself returning to her laughter, her cute expressions, her little gestures, the things she said in her beautiful voice and accent, and the little things she did all day to keep me so occupied. I revisit the beautiful, the mundane, the challenging, and the unforgettable.

Sometimes the ache is beyond words to explain, yet I land on some moments on a random day, with a smile. At other times, the very same memories bring me to my knees.

The irony is that retrospection does not discriminate between happiness and heartbreak. It brings both to the surface, often without warning. A beautiful memory is now painful simply because it reminds me that there will be no continuation of that experience. The photographs have become moments of closeness but always bring me face to face with the distance that her death has created.

I find myself caught between the two faces of retrospection.

One searches for answers, reconstructing events, and examining possibilities, desperately trying to understand what happened and whether anything could have been different.

The other seeks to preserve, revisit, and relive the moments that made Aabi who she was. It holds on to the little person she is (was), the joy she brings, and the love that continues to occupy a space far greater than the time we were given together.

I suppose, over time, I have also come to recognise that not every retrospective exercise needs to bring forth a lesson or an actionable outcome. Not every question needs to have an answer. Sometimes, it all simply needs to be allowed to exist as it was.

Perhaps this is particularly difficult for a mind conditioned to learn, understand, and make sense of everything. We are accustomed to believing that sufficient analysis will eventually lead to clarity. That every event can be understood if examined from enough different perspectives. That is why science and medicine have become precious. Yet, anything that deviates from the expected path defined by the past lands at an unexpected outcome.

But the loss of a child challenges that very premise.

Some questions do not yield answers, regardless of how many times they are asked. And some outcomes remain unbearably permanent, irrespective of how extensively we retrospectively analyse the circumstances that led to them.

I cannot change anything to return to those moments with the knowledge I have today. I cannot create a different ending for my Aabi.

The world may thrive on retrospection because it allows us to build a better tomorrow from the experiences of yesterday.

I, however, have a rather different relationship with yesterday.

I revisit it because that is where Aabi is. Her little life that continues to define mine.

And while the world looks back to move forward, I look back because I cannot bear to move further away from the moments in which she was here.

Perhaps that is the greatest paradox of a bereaved mother's retrospection.

The world looks to the past to create its future. A mother who has lost her child looks to the past because it is the only place where she can still find pieces of her past, her present, and the future she once imagined.

For Aabi, my little girl, your moments continue to occupy a lifetime within me!