Memories Fade. Sacrifices are forgotten. And it's endearing how we pretend they don't to reassure. Not to reassure those we remember (if they need to be remembered, whether they are or not is little solace), but those whose pity pushes us to make promises. Even if it soothes momentary tears, it's better to not make promises in the first place than to inevitably break them, even if the pledge could be maintained for 100 years.

And so, let's accept this. Let's accept that there's only so much any one person can know. There are limits. Remember the Alamo! Until you have to Remember the Maine! And even then, it will soon be placed by Remembering Pearl Harbor! And now we have September Eleventh. A day that will never be forgotten. Even though the genocides in Rwanda seem conveniently to never have been remembered to begin with. And how do you explain to a child in the 21st Century that she should hold in her heart a place for the victims in New York, but the Rape of Nanking is worth only historical study and not the overwhelming sense of personal indignation politicians continue to tell us 9/11 should inspire? Let us stop deceiving widows and orphans: your loss will be remembered for as long as it can be, as long as it is still useful to remember, as long as it doesn't cause more loss as baggage than it reminds of joy. We are sorry if this compounds your loss, but it has only been by telling this to the generations before you that you even now can walk through streets without weeping at the undiminished loss of those who came before.

Of course, it's nice to save space in the brain, but it's awfully hard to sleep there. Which brings us to the real estate of loss: memorials. Chipped away from marble or cast in bronze, the monuments of today are meant to last. And last. Until they start to show their age, not gracefully but by dilapidation. Hinges break, windows warp. Fewer visitors run eagerly through the turnstiles, until the ones who might come are put off by the overly insistent and too damn helpful gaze of the curator whose day consists mainly of rereading scraps of 18th Century parchment. And soon enough, we are not remembering the memory but the monument. Our efforts turn selfish but with a pretense of philanthropy, the most vile of motives. Some superintendent's wife takes up the cause of preserving the local treasure, without realizing the irony of watching the watcher. I can only thank the stars I live in a country too young to have preservation societies fragile enough to need protection themselves.

And if you might doubt that the attention of the public is so easily turned from signified to signifier, I ask you this: Who was Cheops and what did he do? I don't know, to be honest, and neither do you. But you still hope one day to travel to Giza to see his Pyramid. Gettysburg and Antietam would never have been safe if they had happened in the streets of Manhattan or any other Metropolis, which would have built around their fallen bodies during the fight. And now they're permanently safe only because tourists love the ability to feel the collective hush of hallowed ground, even if they aren't quite sure what kicked off the tradition.

Instead, let us build proportional memorials. The greater the loss, the greater the structure. For that wonderful loaf of bread you forgot to eat in a timely manner, leave a pile of dust on your way to the car, to be washed away by the next rain. Keep the last small present your ex-lover gave your prominently on your desk, to warm you with its fond inner light until a house pet or co-worker absent-mindedly confiscates it. Fill the Lincoln Monument with plastic balls and swing sets. Turn it into a playground, so that all the children of D.C. would prefer nothing more than to visit this fine specimen of a man, time and time again, until they know the contours of his face from climbing over it. What better motivation could there be to an eleventh grade student to study his history than a subconscious attraction to this man's visage, and a subdued memory that his left ear was a particularly effective handhold?

Even better than reminding other people or yourself of a loved one departed, in one circumstance or another, is making something of that. Be better because of their memory. Drive safer, in remembrance of Cindy. Build a better mousetrap as a tribute to Fluffy, God Rest His Soul. Eat healthier, and let your toned abs be dedicated to your fourth grade teacher's infinite patience and compassion. For extra credit, combine creation and retelling. They Might Be Giants immortalized our 11th President in a song with a silly melody. Shakespare's 18th sonnet is an admirable attempt ("So long as ... eyes can see,/ so long lives this, and this gives life to thee").

But English will sooner or later go out of style, and TMBG's alternative-nerdy-indie-pop-rock style still hasn't quite made it. So what was the last time that remembrance gave us something permanent? Some people say ideas stopped happening in the Renaissance, some in Ancient Greece, but I say that even ideas can fade. So look further back, from thoughts to emotions. At some point there was a first human. And a few years later there were other humans, and then loss started. And there was one instant, when a Homo Erectus walked away from her mate. If you had been there, you could have looked into his Australopithecine eyes and seen the first hurt, the first numb acceptance that you'll still notice if you look closely at anybody recently without their companion.

And a few years after that, some hunter dragged home a Mastodon carcass to find his proto-spouse shtupping a gatherer, and he invented betrayal, forever to be invoked with a debt of invention owed to him, and by him to her. In due time came jealousy and loneliness. But it was only with the addition of these pangs that allowed someone to create an emotion not after the loss but instead of it. And he knew of how awful things could be, and that convinced him that what he had truly was as great as his heart told him. And he left to the world not bitterness, but the first true love.

Biologists may disagree with my phylogeny, but in my eyes, he was the first true Human.