Loved ones try to cling to the memories of softly sung lullabies, Nan's home cooking and visits filled with laughter.
But too often fond recollections are obstructed by horrific images of blackened bodies, soot-covered faces and fear-stricken eyes.
These are the final images that haunt the family members of 11 people who died in the Quakers Hill Nursing Home blaze three years after the tragedy.
Through tears the families have spoken of the calamity's lasting effects and their battles with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), their sadness and crippling personal loss.
Nurse Roger Dean is serving life in prison after admitting to lighting the fire in the nursing home and killing 11 residents.
During the final day of an inquest into the inferno, Sue Webeck said her life was turned upside down when she arrived at the nursing home on November, 18, 2011.
Ms Webeck said when she saw her mother, Vera, in hospital she hardly recognised her.
"She was black all over," she said.
Ms Webeck said since her mother's death she has relied on medication and therapy and struggled with PTSD.
"If Mum was here, she would be all the therapy I would need," she said.
The family of Doris Becke say they are plagued by nightmares and images of the 96-year-old in the intensive care unit (ICU).
Hand sanitiser, like the one they used in the ICU caring for their dying family member, is enough to trigger the haunting memories, the family said.
The inquest heard Dean discovered staff suspected he was behind missing medication at the nursing home.
Hours later he lit two fires in the western Sydney building before taking the drug registers from the medication room.
Dean's colleagues were apprehensive about working with him after the drug theft allegations emerged that night, the inquest heard.
Better training for staff on how to respond to suspected drug theft would be beneficial, counsel assisting the coroner Kristina Stern SC submitted.
In draft recommendations it was also submitted Opal Specialist Aged Care, which owns the nursing home, consider whether it should have access to nurses' Medicare and PBS records with signed consent.
In the 12 months before the fire, one of Dean's multiple doctors gave him five types of anti-depressants, three types of sleeping tablets, opioids and anti-psychotics.
Ms Stern also highlighted the need for employers to check the references of potential staffers.
The inquest heard Dean "stalked" a supervisor while working at St George Mental Health Unit and turned up to work drug affected at St John of God hospital in Burwood in 2011.
He left out his experience at St John of God in his CV to Quakers Hill Nursing Home.
Dean provided the St John of God hospital a letter from his doctor - despite not having a formal diagnosis - stating he suffered from bipolar disorder but was stable enough to work.
The coroner Hugh Dillon will deliver his findings at a later date.
