evanescence

After you lose a loved one, often you’re gripped with a fear of evanescence, or the rapid fading from sight or memory of that person.

Evanescence comes from the Latin evanescere meaning “disappear, vanish.” Something that possesses qualities of evanescence, has a quality of disappearing or vanishing. The evanescence of a shooting star makes it hard to catch — it’s there one moment and gone the next. Evanescence is a word typically used to describe an event that fades from sight or memory, or sometimes the fleeting quality of worldly success.