Memory is an odd thing. You want to remember some things and forget others, yet there seem to be matters that you cannot remember and matters that you cannot get out of your mind no matter what you do.

In world terms, there are important matters to remember, like paying a bill and finding a stamp.

I suggest that when you can get unnecessary memories out of your way, you will be better able to remember what you feel you are bound to remember. This way you will have more mind space available into which to tuck information. You don't want to crowd your mind. You don't want clutter. What your conscious mind can accommodate is not endless, beloveds. You do not want to stuff it too full. This is one reason why you want to let some memories go.

I do understand that the mind does not always do your bidding. You can tell your contrary mind to forget this and remember that, and it will do the opposite, so stubborn is the human mind.

Remembering can be coerced. You study. You memorize. You tie a string around your finger. You set an alarm. You use a whistling teapot. Yet, when it comes to forgetting that which may have been holding you back, the harder you try, the more you remember.

Perhaps you can coach your errant mind with the congenial idea that it does not have to remember everything. You can hint to the harried mind that it's fine with you that it not embed memories that are better forgotten.

It is your desire to keep thinking of loved ones who have left their bodies, and yet the sweetest of memories now causes you pain. It may be that you have been giving your mind mixed cues. Or perhaps you have convinced yourself that sweet memories of those departed can only cause you pain now. You label them bittersweet. But must those precious memories cause pain? Isn't there a way whereby you can call up the sweetness from the past and be glad for it and even smile?

Is there perhaps a way for you to rid yourself of the idea that any loved one of yours has disappeared? Do your memories have to disappear in order for you to be pain-free? What is a God to do with you, beloveds? I would not have you suffer.

There must be a sorting process in your mind going on. It has bins for different categories of memories. Nice, lovely, frightening, hurtful, for instance. But such sorting isn't a law. Where is it written that any memory has to cause pain? Why not have only joy from joyous memories? Why must the dearest memories of your life be painful? Perhaps you can suggest to your overworked mind that you want one category, and that is of joy. Perhaps you can get your mind to accept that all memories are fine, and no longer does any memory have to remind you of loss.

Consider your mind a parade. Now it parades on this street and around this corner. A parade does not mourn the streets and corners where it already marched. A parade, even a Rose Bowl Parade, does not think: "Oh, but why can't I still be marching on Main Street? It was so nice there. But if I go back there, now I can only be nostalgic and unhappy." A spectacular parade doesn't think, "Oh, last year I was at my best. But this year, I don't know." A parade doesn't think: "There will never be a parade like that one I just did." A parade marches where it marches, and it marches sharply. A parade knows it exists to give present happiness to itself and to all who line up and down the street to clap for it. Does a parade perpetuate itself more wisely than you, beloveds?