One thing people who have had a significant loss often hear is "You have to forget it and move on." It is the desire of friends that we continue to live our lives. They don't want us to hurt and they don't like the feelings they have when we do hurt.

But, when things fall apart, one of the most natural thing to do is to "re-member". When things are broken and scattered, we want to put them back the way they were. We want to "re-member" them. That way we don't have to deal with the pain of brokenness or the the chaos of scattered pieces of our lives.

But, I think re-membering is also important because that which is lost needs to be integrated into the life that we live moving forward. The loss of someone or something that has been significant in our self-identity has to be processed in a way that we can move forward. Our past doesn't just disappear. It isn't simply forgotten. Our past has to be reintegrated into the self that is moving forward.

So my recommendation is that we re-member our past so that it can be integrated into our new life as part of who we are but in a different relationship to our lives. Whereas it might have been central to the way we do things, now, it might be more peripheral. If your job was central to your self-understanding when you were employed, it now may be important for your understanding of who you have been and who you might be, but it isn't as central to who you are right now. It has to be re-membered in a way that you can carry it forward in your life to give you courage and strength to move into the unknown future.

So, re-member well. The past remains part of who you are becoming.