18.

       Make a Frame

To increase the likelihood of children remembering why all those people in your photographs are important, spend an afternoon together decorating a special frame.

How you embellish the frame depends on both the child’s age and his or her attention span. For younger kids, glitter and gems glued on an inexpensive, unfinished wooden frame work well, while older children can likely handle the kind of inspired projects found in Joe Rhatigan’s handsome book The Decorated Frame: 45 Picture-Perfect Projects. My favorite idea in that volume suggests affixing frames with hardware: door knobs, drawer pulls, and old-fashioned key holes. If you still have access to your loved one’s home, these items might be especially lovely to salvage. You might also decorate the frame with old-timey objects like brooches, buckles—even the frames of eyeglasses.

Making a special frame is a fantastic activity for a Memory Bash (Forget Me Not #43) because the value of this project is in the creating as much as it is in what you create. According to James L. McGaugh, neurobiologist and author of Memory and Emotion: The Making of Lasting Memories, “emotionally significant events create stronger, longer-lasting memories.” Decorating a frame with others has the potential for being just this kind of “emotionally significant” event. Over time, the memory of the time spent personalizing a frame will likely reinforce the significance of the person being framed.