Writing down your memories may help you recall more joyous ones. It certainly helped me remember happier times. In my own case, it wasn't a death. My mother lost herself in postpartum psychosis. Things were so very bad after that, I blocked out memories of a kinder mother. Things were so bad after the PPS, that my child-mind couldn't reconcile the happier memories with the ongoing post PPS reality.

As a young adult, it was through therapy, my art, and my poetry that I began to recall the mother of my early childhood. That's not to say I found this fatastically ideal cache of childhood memories. She wasn't a completely different person. The PPS left behind all the worst bits and the penchant to extremism, stripping away the kinder and more moderating behaviors.

But, without the therapy, writing, and my art, I would not have found those suppressed memories.