Something that my father once said. I first heard it when I was a teenager. My sister, Terre, and I had taken, well, a disliking to a so-called friend of our father’s. As always, Dad had been very generous with this fellow — giving him a career boost — but when my father needed a favor in return, the guy didn’t deliver. He’d even been petty about it.

My father took it all in stride. He was a man who didn’t carry around a lot of emotional baggage. His outlook on life was “live and let live.” But in this instance, his equanimity didn’t sit well with Terre and me — and we said so.

“How can you be nice to that man. You’ve been so generous to him and he’s not being generous back. Why would you ever want to give him the time of day again?”

My father simply said, “I do not hunch my back with yesterday.”

Over the years, I came to realize that my father’s philosophy made so much sense. Holding a grudge doesn’t change the person you’re angry with, but it changes you. It makes you heavier. It gives you more to lug around.

Not hunching your back with yesterday speaks about forgiveness. It speaks about moving on. And to me, it speaks directly to what a healthy and loving guy my father was.

After he died in 1991, I received calls and letters from countless friends, expressing their sympathy. Everyone knew how deeply I loved my dad, and how much I would miss him. One of those letters came from a man with whom, years before, I’d had a falling out over a business deal in which I felt he had acted in bad faith. We hadn’t spoken since.

“I know I’m probably not the person you want to hear from right now,” his letter began, “but I thought I’d write anyway to tell you how sorry I am about the loss of your father. I know he meant the world to you, and I just wanted to let you know that you are in my thoughts.”

I was touched by the letter, and wrote the man back, thanking him for his kindness. Because he’d mentioned our disagreement in his note, that’s how I began mine:

“I am my father’s daughter,” I wrote. “And like him, I do not hunch my back with yesterday …”