The devil drags you to the past, Christ leads you to the future.

"Clinging" leads to darkness because it binds us while freedom leads to the Light. 

What do we cling to?

We cling to possessions. We cling to "status." We cling to friends and relatives. We cling to memories.

To cling is to act on an obsession.

And obsessions hold us back -- here and in the hereafter (until purged in purgatory).

Cling only to Jesus and that which is of Heaven.

Don't confuse emotionalism (let alone obsession) with love nor clinging with true affection.

Too many do this! They believe that the longer they mourn, and the more devastated they seem, the more loving they are.

That's not necessarily true. Too often, it is instead the sign of an imbalance.

Christ came to give us the "good news" and the good news is that life is eternal -- which He showed with His Resurrection (not to mention subsequent appearances of the Virgin Mary).

Worst of all is morbid obsession.

It's normal to mourn when a close relative dies. There is a time -- a season -- for sorrow.

Just make sure it doesn't last too long. Don't equate the length of sadness with love.

In near-death experiences, those who come back regularly inform us that in Heaven they were reunited with deceased loved ones, and that God has a determined tome-frame and mission for all of us.

When that job is done, so is life on this earth.

And that's another thing we are not to overly cling to: this life, which is so fleeting.

We "cleave" with people -- our spouses (Genesis 2:24) -- while we are in human form, but once one has passed on (whether a parent, child, friend, or sibling) -- we must let them go or we risk holding them back -- perhaps, for a time, even causing them (as they try to console) to be "earthbound."

At the least, we hold back ourselves.

Clinging is what a parasite does, and when we cling to people in this life, in an abnormal way, we drain energy.

When we are free of morbidity, we are free to ascend upward.

Nostalgia can be a great detriment.

Any over-sentimentalism is.

God divines the future, the devil obsesses (and caused us to obsess) on the past.

The truth sets us free and the truth is that it's God's Light (not human affection) that frees us forever.