The Sweetness of Forgetting

by Kristin Harmel

One man’s candle is light for many. —TRACTATE SHABBAT, ORDER MOED OF THE TALMUD

Life changes you, even if you don’t realize it while it’s happening, and it turns out you can’t take back the years that have passed by.

“Because, my dear, it is good to remember that you do not always have to see something to know that it is there.”

“I know things have been hard on you lately. But you never know what will happen tomorrow, or the next day. One day, one week, one month can change everything.”

‘As long as there are stars in the sky, I will love you.’ That’s what the prince in your stories always said.”

‘Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world.’ ” Alain makes a strange strangled sound. “In the Talmud, it is written, ‘If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world,’ ” he says softly.

It is not religion that divides man. It is good and evil here on earth that separates us.”

“I think God must speak all the languages.” His tone was confident. “I think he can hear all of us.”

“I mean that love is all around us,” Alain says. “But the older we get, the more confusing it becomes. The more times we’ve been hurt, the harder it is to see love right in front of us, or to accept love into our hearts and truly believe in it. And if you cannot accept love, you can never really feel it.”

“And I think that every time a person gets hurt, there’s another layer that forms around the outside of their heart, you know? Like a shield or something.

Life doesn’t work out the way we plan, but maybe it works out the way it’s supposed to after all.

You can only look forward in life. You can change the future, but not the past.”

Life is a series of opportunities, and you have to have the courage to seize them, before the years pass you by and leave you with nothing but regrets.

Love is so much more powerful than you realize.

For it is only by loving, and having the courage to be loved in return, that you can find God, who exists most of all in your heart.