Death is unavoidable and omnipresent. We all know it. And unfortunately many of us have experienced a personal loss in our lives. And while grief and bereavement may affect us differently, mementos and memories help our loved ones live on in our minds.
I Am Dead (2020), a videogame published by Annapurna Interactive and from British developer Hollow Pond, helps to show this very thing. In the game our character Morris Lupton, who is dead, spends time searching for the ghosts he knew when he was alive. In order to talk to a particular person, we have to visit the places they frequented, and immerse ourselves inside the memories of the people who knew them best. Those memories together are pieces of the whole; they help to tell the personality, the life, the very soul of each one of these individuals. After viewing the memories, we have to find the memento that is important to them, which requires a bit of searching and inspecting. Attention to detail is a must here.
Playing this game was an emotional experience for me. I had so many realizations. In each part of I Am Dead, we can learn things that may help to think of our passed loved ones and the memories we hold of them in a different way. In the game, the mementos and memories combined are the sum of a person’s parts. I realized that the memories we have of our loved ones are like secret little parts of them that most people will never know. They are ours to keep. But when put together and shared with others, you get a grasp on how much depth they had as a person.
Mementos and memories being directly related make me think of my own loved ones who have passed. I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandmother, and looking through her old etiquette books and photo albums remind me of how graceful she was. She was a strong, adventurous, and outspoken woman. It gives me memories of playing with her dog, or trying on her oversized hats that were too big for my head. Listening to my grandfather’s Santana album he gave me makes me remember how I got into learning Spanish, how much he loved music, how thoughtful and kind he was. There is a sense of melancholy in all of these thoughts, but it is also sprinkled with unwavering love that keeps their spirit alive.
At one point Morris laments that he was just a museum operator. But he learns soon after that no one is just anything. For example, it wasn’t just my grandfather who passed away, but someone’s love, someone’s father, someone’s best friend, someone’s favorite customer. We are more than what we think, and that goes for every single person.
In the game, Morris is occasionally down about his past life. In one instance he says, “I suppose it seems a bit galling that time and everything else keeps moving, even though I’ve stopped. Makes a man feel…unimportant.” But we all know how time stops for no one. And that unwavering love I wrote about is not affected by time, as long as we choose to remember our loved ones. Because in all honesty, they are as important as we make them. People are bounded by time, but memories are not. They last forever.
It makes me think about Día de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration that views death as a welcomed part of life. One of the many things happening from November 1st to November 2nd is that the mementos and favorite foods of loved ones are taken and stories are passed down to young family members as a way to carry on their memory. There is a quote at the bottom of the Day of the Dead website saying, “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” And it rings true in I Am Dead.
Playing this game also made me do a bit of research into the Death Postivity movement. It’s a term popularized by Caitlin Doughty, a mortician, writer, and champion for the funeral industry reform. The Death positivity movement simply means that people should be given support during and after death, including the ability to speak freely about their grief and experiences. It provides a healthy way to look at death. If you are interested in learning more about this movement click here for the official site. Below are 8 of their tenets, or beliefs.
I Am Dead is a beautiful game full of intention. It is equal parts lighthearted, whimsical, and thoughtful. It makes us feel like we knew the characters just from hearing the memories and stories from the people who knew them. We are left thinking about our lives, and our loved ones who have passed. And although we may never really finish grieving, I hope that we can all find peace in our memories, mementos, and our tireless, unhesistating love for those special people in our lives who have passed.
If you’d like to see this game in action, I have a playthrough of it on YouTube!
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