In May 2022, I lost my father.
He loved me deeply, and I think about him often. More than anything, I was afraid of one thing — that his face would slowly fade from my memory as the years passed.
I wanted something to hold on to. A keepsake I could look at, touch, and light up in quiet moments — a way to remember him, and to pray for him. I searched for a memorial piece worthy of him, but nothing I found felt right. Everything was either generic, cold, or mass-produced. None of them felt like him.
So I made one myself.
I took a camping gas lantern — the kind with a clear glass chimney — and laser-engraved my father's portrait onto the glass. When I lit the flame for the first time, something shifted. His face glowed softly from within, the light flickering gently behind him. It wasn't sad. It was warm. Peaceful. Like a quiet moment of being close to him again. And the engraving, etched into glass by laser, would never fade. Unlike memory, it could hold its own against time.
Friends saw it. Then friends of friends. People began asking if I could make one for them — for a mother they'd lost, a grandfather, a husband, a beloved pet. Every request came with a story, and every story reminded me of the same truth:
Loss is not what we fear most. Forgetting is.
And so, from lanterns to rings and beyond, I began making keepsakes for others — for their loved ones, to remember, to memorialize, to stand against what time takes away. That's why EternalMemento exists.
Justin Ma, Founder of Eternal Memento