#orphan

When you lose your parents as a child, you are indoctrinated into a club, you re taken into life's severest confidence. You are undeceived. ↗

— Hilary Thayer Hamann

#orphans #life

There were two types of survivors in life: those, like her, who found the requisite strength in having once been loved with great intensity; and those who, having not been loved, learned to thrive on hatred, suspicion, and the meager rewards of revenge. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#love #orphans #strength-of-character #survivors #life

Solidarity was admirable; loyalty was the person standing next to you when the devil came to call. ↗

— Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson

#loyalty #sisters-sibling-rivalry #historical-fiction

Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form. ↗

— John Berger

#autobiography #begins #being #being alone #form

I’d felt this before, when my granddad was in the hospital before he died. We all camped out in the waiting room, eating our meals together, most of us sleeping in the chairs every night. Family from far-flung places would arrive at odd hours and we’d all stand and stretch, hug, get reacquainted, and pass the babies around. A faint, pale stream of beauty and joy flowed through the heavy sludge of fear and grief. It was kind of like those puddles of oil you see in parking lots that look ugly until the sun hits them and you see rainbows pulling together in the middle of the mess. And wasn’t that just how life usually felt—a confusing swirl of ugly and rainbow? ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#death #depression #family #glass-girl #grief

I reached down and picked up a baseball bat at my feet and I flung it as hard as it could. It circled and arced high in the air until it slammed against the side of the dining hall with a crack and fell. I sat down in the dirt. Then I lay down in the dirt. Because not only was there no trail to follow, there was no evidence he’d ever been here. There was no evidence any of them had been here. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dating #glass-girl #government #high-school #laura-anderson-kurk

My dad used to say, ‘This is what your right arm’s for, son,’” John said. “This is the time and these are the people and I’d give my right arm to be a light, a comfort, to them. I know you would, too. In whatever form it takes. Use these materials and make something great. Do it on faith, knowing you probably won’t be around to see how the story ends. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dedication #glass-girl #high-school #laura-anderson-kurk #long-distance-relationships

But I'm here. I will love him. I will be his mother. ↗

— Kim De Blecourt

#ginger-kolbaba #international-adoption #kim-de-blecourt #orphans #ukraine

This country owes them all a debt of gratitude. The down payment on that debt is making sure that we live up to Lincoln's charge: to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan. ↗

— Dave Obey

#borne #care #charge #country #debt

I went to a number of foreign countries, and during whenever I went, I would try to go to an orphanage or a home for children. And I was seeing thousands of kids around the world that needed homes. ↗

— Sam Brownback

#children #countries #during #foreign #foreign countries