#bereavement

Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#grief #beauty

How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury? ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#casket #death #funeral #heart #loss

Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life. ↗

— Maria V. Snyder

#death #grief #death

Farewell is said by the living, in life, every day. It is said with love and friendship, with the affirmation that the memories are lasting if the flesh is not. ↗

— R.A. Salvatore

#death #mourning #death

Cordelia! stay a little. Ha! What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#death #grief #death

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it? ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#death #loss #death

Horror is a feeling that cannot last long; human nature is incapable of supporting it. Sadness, whether it be from bereavement, or disappointment, or misfortune of any kind may linger on through life ↗

— James De Mille

#disappointment #horror #misfortune #sadness #life

Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother. ↗

— Jane Welsh Carlyle

#comfort #comforter #does #feel #great

Holding the knife with the blade against my palm, it became so clear how my life would only contain shadows now. Shadows of things gone; not just the people themselves but everything connected to them. Was this my future? Every moment, every tiny thing I saw and did and touched, weighted by loss. Every space in this house and my town and the world in general, empty in a way that could never be filled. ↗

— Jennifer Castle

#grief #loss #mourning #tragic-death #death

They should make earplugs for people who are grieving, so we don't have to hear the stupid things people say, but I'd look like a dork in them." -Corinna ↗

— Carole Geithner

#children-s-grief #death-of-a-loved-one #death-of-a-parent #grief #if-only