Week 7: Chapter 6 — Redemptive Remembering

1.Sittser describes the way memory functions in grief — sometimes as a fresh wound that opens without warning, sometimes as a comfort. How has memory worked in your own experience of loss? Does it tend to hurt more or heal more?

2.He writes beautifully about Lynda, his mother, and Diana Jane as specific people with particular personalities, gifts, and ways of being in the world. Why is this kind of particularized remembering — as opposed to idealized or generalized memory — so important to healthy grief?

3.Sittser introduces the idea of "redemptive remembering" — a way of holding memory that allows the past to inform and enrich the present without imprisoning us in it. What makes memory redemptive rather than merely painful or merely sentimental?