Forgetting

I am told that if someone hurts you, the best way of getting even is to forget it.  I understand that, but don't have the character. There is one aspect that is a revenge, as in the lyrics to the Johnny Cash version of "Streets of Laredo."

"Then go write a letter to my grey-haired mother,
"An' tell her the cowboy that she loved has gone.
"But please not one word of the man who had killed me.
"Don't mention his name and his name will pass on."

Yet I think something deeper is meant