Maggie, I like your comment about accepting human weakness and fraility as a form of forgiveness. As Emjay pointed out, forgetting is easy, but the forgiving is hard when memory recalls it. The path, I think, when remembering, is to remember also that my mother had a deep flaw and truly could not cope with life. That takes the sting out of it; there was no malice in her, ever, towards me.

As Batty pointed out, as long as the memories don't prevent or interfere with life's enjoyment, do they really matter? TT, I like your phrase, don't give them "head space" any more. Writing that entry and then clicking "Save Entry" and sending it out into the great void of the Internet helped clear out the head space for something much more interesting and creative than painful memories.

Bev asks a good question, is there some rule that we have to forgive everyone everything? I don't think there's some rule, but I do think that holding a grudge, holding on to the pain causes further damage. So one can choose to forgive or not, and accept the consequences of that choice.

And as Bex pointed out, the need to forgive was really my own need; my mother is long past any such human emotion or thought. It was I who needed to think it through, and find a resolution.

Your comments have helped me do that. Thank you all.