#bereavement

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

There is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#grief #loss #life

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place. ↗

— Sarah Dessen

#grief #truth

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ↗

— a headstone in Ireland

#epitaph #mourning #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

As she cried, I could feel growing there, as had once before, a presence between us: the tiny perfect form of Sherry nestled between her parents' bodies. Our bodies were shaped by her absence, by the almost unbearable weight of her loss. ↗

— Robert J. Wiersema

#death #grief #loss #death

Sometimes, there was no getting over it. Sometimes, you lived with the empty place inside of you until you imploded on it, loss as singularity, or until the empty place expanded and hollowed out the rest of you so thoroughly you became the walking dead, a ghost in your own life. ↗

— Caitlin Kittredge

#grief #loss #life

What is so sweet as to awake from a troubled dream and behold a beloved face smiling upon you? I love to believe that such shall be our awakening from earth to heaven. My faith never wavers that each dear friend I have “lost” is a new link between this world and the happier land beyond the morn. My soul is for the moment bowed down with grief when I cease to feel the touch of their hands or hear a tender word from them; but the light of faith never fades from the sky, and I take heart again, glad they are free. I cannot understand why anyone should fear death…Suppose there are a million chances against that one that my loved ones who have gone on are alive. What of it? I will take that one chance and risk mistake, rather than let any doubts sadden their souls, and find out afterward. Since there is that one chance of immortality, I will endeavor not to cast a shadow on the joy of the departed…Certainly it is one of our sweetest experiences that when we are touched by some noble affection or pure joy, we remember the dead most tenderly, and feel more powerfully drawn to them. ↗

— Helen Keller

#grief #heaven #joy #loss #love

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; ↗

— William Cullen Bryant

#death #mourning #death

You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#death #grief #death