remembering

I'm out, surrounded in dark. But in the distance there is a small glow, a tiny light. Suddenly I'm standing alone, the space starting to brighten as the light grows.

To forget is to blithely toss aside the hard lessons that were hard won by others before us, thereby needlessly dooming us to endure the hard lessons that are likely to be forgotten by those who will follow us. And it is altogether reasonable that in order to avoid this repetitive trouncing, God graciously granted us memories.

I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.

There are edges around the black and every now and then a flash of color streaks out of the gray. But I can never really grasp any of the slivers of memories that emerge.

Maybe that was how I found comfort just then, even with him being so far away. By remembering the flavor of his words.

Words disappear in the air, but writing remains. If you want something to be remembered about you, write it down

What is the one thing that gets you up every morning? The one thing that keeps you going every day, every month, every year? Let me get you started. My one thing is this, __'m one day closer..._ One day closer to a goal, an outcome, or the results I'm after in my life. This is my way of remembering the importance of focusing on the life I desire and living a life of gratitude! So, what__ your one thing_?

We gonna be a family again in Heaven. It takes some strong patience, but the Lord will come through. And as long as we here, we can get on living by never forgetting. Never forgetting and always remembering.

Nostalgia is so certain: the sense of familiarity it instills makes us feel like we know ourselves, like we've lived. To get a sense that we have already journeyed through something - survived it, experienced it - is often so much easier and less messy than the task of currently living through something.

When you start thinking about what your life was like 10 years ago--and not in general terms, but in highly specific detail--it's disturbing to realize how certain elements of your being are completely dead. They die long before you do. It's astonishing to consider all the things from your past that used to happen all the time but (a) never happen anymore, and (b) never even cross your mind. It's almost like those things didn't happen. Or maybe it seems like they just happened to someone else. To someone you don't really know. To someone you just hung out with for one night, and now you can't even remember her name.

I have to live if I want to be remembered.

One couldn__ be selective when remembering the past. Ignore the turmoil, chaos and pain _ and the truly great memories would not shine with such luster.

We enshrine things to memory very differently than we experience them in real time. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman has coined a couple of terms to make the distinction. He talks about the "experiencing self" versus the "remembering self.

My months are spent preparing for the fall.

I don__ remember his face or the place we ate. I only remember how he grabbed my hand and his voice when he spoke of his dad.

The mind plays tricks. It rejects things until it thinks _ or something tells it _ that the remembering can be handled.

If you remember yourself, you will remember me. I am always a part of you. I am your mother.

To the members of my family who are no longer with us, I__ like to say I__ sorry. There is a quote by Stephen Dunn I__e always loved; he says, __ur parents died at least twice, the second time when we forgot their stories._ I hope by remembering your stories, the good and the bad, you can forgive me for sharing parts of your lives you may have wished to have kept private.