Please remember that you are choosing to read my opinions.

Some people feel that life is about living from one moment to the next, but how long is a moment? Life flows as we live it, as fluid in its motion as a river. It is in memory where our lives become sketchy. You remember odds and ends of the past, but even the things you can't recall make a lasting impression. You might remember the time your mother took you to the park and caught you at the bottom of the infinitely long slides and not remember anything else until the next year when your favorite grandfather passed away, but you live every moment in between, from the time your grandmother said she was proud of you to the time your teacher gave you a lecture on immaturity.

In some ways it is sad that we can't catalog every single moment, sort them and search them when the need arises. To be able to remember exactly what happened before your high school prom instead of just the big, slow dance where everyone was clinging to each other with clamy, teenage palms. To remember exactly how our loved ones were to us after they have passed on instead of slowly losing them to the passage of time and the gain of new experiences. It would be nice to rewind to the time our grandparents taught us their favorite recipes from those times when we were too young to care. If only we knew that one day we'd want to know these things. But to be able to find that relevant piece of advice our mothers gave us when we need it the most just by thinking about it -- it would be so nice.

In other ways it is good that we can make room for new experiences and not dwell on pain and suffering, or one happy moment. Both can be just as adverse to moving on. To be stuck wishing for one more moment like you used to have, or to be fearful of another painful experience. There is no worse thing than to stay where you are out of a fear of the future, whether you are fearful that the future will bring pain or won't bring pleasure. We can never give ourselves the option of giving up. Our memory allows us to do this. We can't remember exactly how bad something was when it happened once we allow ourselves to move on.

It always seems to me that memory is like looking at a photo album taken by a trigger happy camera person. When looking back you see all these pictures and you remember them happening and you have a feeling about them whether or not you know the significance of them. Every photo has significance, you could say. Photographs have purpose. You don't take a photograph of a crack in the wall unless it draws you to it. You don't take a photograph of a birthday party because you want to forget it. In the same way, we don't remember things that don't have significance. You aren't likely to remember the sequence of the first row of snacks in the vending machine in your high school, but you might remember your favorite snack from the machine.

In times of grief you know how memory is. You remember snapshots of the person you loved. The times that really meant something to you in some way. We don't always know what they meant, but it isn't likely you remember the meaningless small talk with the person unless it was something normal. I remember talking to my great grandfather every day after school. He'd ask me about my grades, ask me how my ailing great grandmother was. He liked to pretend that he didn't care about her, but once she was sick he sure asked about her a lot. He'd always be watching Gunsmoke or some other western type show. He'd pull out his wallet and give me some money and tell me not to spend it all on beer. That was a typical visit to my great grandfather. I don't remember the details of our conversations, though.

How many significant memories are we giving each other? If life is about anything, it must be about the things that make an impression on us. How many good impressions to we leave with people? Is anyone reading this going to remember when they are old the time that I wrote about something that touched them when they were 20? When I hold a door for someone, do they remember a few weeks later that I went out of my way to hold the door? Does the girl I proposed to in the first grade remember when I pulled a note scribbled with my thick Cliford the Big Red Dog pencil and how she declined with youthful glee by demolishing the heartfelt note? Will I remember how clumsy my first "relationship" was when I am 60? Will I always remember my first heartbreaks?

Time doesn't heal all wounds but it gives us the perspective that only time can give us. Our memory holds on to things that shouldn't be forgotten and time works its magic. Our bad memories slowly lose their sharpness, our happy memories gain a nostalgic element. We start to remember both the good and the bad with the eye of someone who has already learned what lessons that the past can teach us, and all our memories turn out to be lessons to keep or share. Life is precious, whether you believe that now or not. Don't fall into the trap of believing that now is forever, nor forget that now won't last forever.

Grief is only a part of life. Pain, anquish, happiness, sadness, pleasure, forgiveness -- all these things are just parts of the whole. One day you will look back on the worst experiences of your life and you'll be looking at them with different eyes. There is an amount of indifference that time grants us along with the ability to reexamine things. It makes heartbreaks into a lesson in relationships, it turns grief into a guide on dealing with life's obstacles. It is hard not to live like our reactions to life are somehow going to span eternity, but keep in mind you won't always feel the same way, with the same intensity that you do now.

Life goes on until it doesn't.