Best 3947 quotes in «grief quotes» category

May you know always that you are never alone, that life and love are eternal, and that you are extraordinary.

May you hear my feeble voice! It will tell you that here below there is a heart full of the memory of you.

Meanwhile there was work to do: raising our children, wading through a mass of legal papers, finances, and taxes, and recovering the professional life that was now our sole support, while, at a subterranean level, feeling adrift in dark, unknown waters. And though I'd flared with anger when the priest at Heinz's funeral had warned not to be "angry at God" because of his sudden and violent death, I struggled not to sink under currents of fear, anger, and confusion that roiled an ocean of grief.

Melly is the only woman friend I ever had,” she thought forlornly, “the only woman except Mother who really loved me. She’s like Mother, too. Everyone who knew her has clung to her skirts.

Memories are precious, but they are part of the past. The things we treasure, whether a facet of a memory, a particular aspect of a loved one, or a tangible talisman, we carry with us—always. They continue to inform us about our loved ones and remind us that life is ongoing, that we can still learn from those who have died and can still feel their presence. The smell of Old Spice will forever be my grandfather. My bony wrists and the veins in my hands are remnants of my grandmother. These small things are treasures that will never lose their value and cannot be taken from me.

Memories saturate my heart and  the story of you spills from my eyes.          ­­—Grace Andren

Mid-Term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home. In the porch I met my father crying— He had always taken funerals in his stride— And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'. Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

Michiko Nogami (1946—1982)” Is she more apparent because she is not anymore forever? Is her whiteness more white because she was the color of pale honey? A smokestack making the sky more visible. A dead woman filling the whole world. Michiko said, “The roses you gave me kept me awake with the sound of their petals falling.

Mijn vader huilde nooit. Als hij bedroefd was, liep hij naar de tempel van de onbekende heilige. Daar knielde hij naast het graf, tikte zachtjes met een steentje tegen de grafsteen, praatte met de heilige en als hij zich weer beter voelde, wandelde hij terug naar huis.

Minute by minute, then hour by hour, then day by day. Work is solace," he said, "friends are comfort. Life is for the living. You and I know that, even though we spend so much time with the dead - maybe because of that we know we have to live. Chale has been a great help to me." "That's good," she said, thinking of the priest she'd suggested Morris talk to. "You can ... you know, anytime." "Yes." His lips curved. "I know. You're work, and a friend, so have been both solace and comfort.

Minute by minute, a day passed.

Missing Alina was worse than a terminal illness. At least when you were terminal you knew the pain was going to end eventually. But there was no light at the end of my tunnel. Grief was going to devour me, day into night, night into day, and although I might feel like I was dying from it, might even wish I was, I never would. I was going to have to walk around with a hole in my heart forever. I was going to hurt for my sister until the day I died. If you don't know what I mean or you think I'm being melodramatic, then you've never really loved anyone.

Modern anxiety is expressed in the longing for what most people fear, even as modern grief is expressed in the unconsummated mourning for what they never really had.

Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visiting him as often as she could. Hanna told me that Ramon's greatest regret was that he wouldn't get to see his daughter grow up. And Jeremy's dad, who had that opportunity, was just throwing it away. It made me furious, and I couldn't let it go.

Monday, June 9: People think they know you. They think they know how you're handling a situation. But the truth is no one knows. No one knows what happens after you leave them, when you're lying in bed or sitting over your breakfast alone and all you want to do is cry or scream. They don't know what's going on inside your head--the mind-numbing cocktail of anger and sadness and guilt. This isn't their fault. They just don't know. And so they pretend and they say you're doing great when you're really not. And this makes everyone feel better. Everybody but you.

More than nakedness, for there is no cover to take. The fire in your eyes is ringed with water; wide and cool. We are far from the brutal place, but you do not think so. You take my hand and disappear like you were never there, except that I am now somewhere else.

Most kids grow sullen and angry when they’re working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bull-headed strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a soul that lovely?

Most of us go through this journey of grief at different speeds

Most people are ennobled by the actual presence of death. But how long do you suppose this nobility will last in him?

Mothering while grieving should involve being understanding and keeping a gentle attitude toward yourself as you work to balance your own needs and your child's. You become stronger by remaining aware of your own well-being, which in turn makes you a stronger person for your child or children.

MOTHER – By Ted Kooser Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume. You have been gone a month today and have missed three rains and one nightlong watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar from six to eight while fat spring clouds went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured, a storm that walked on legs of lightning, dragging its shaggy belly over the fields. The meadowlarks are back, and the finches are turning from green to gold. Those same two geese have come to the pond again this year, honking in over the trees and splashing down. They never nest, but stay a week or two then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts, burning in circles like birthday candles, for this is the month of my birth, as you know, the best month to be born in, thanks to you, everything ready to burst with living. There will be no more new flannel nightshirts sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand. You asked me if I would be sad when it happened and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner, as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that. Were it not for the way you taught me to look at the world, to see the life at play in everything, I would have to be lonely forever.

Mourning is never really complete. The mappings of the old play remain in the cortex, like those mappings of the phantom limb.

Mourning leads not to resurrection.

Mourning with no end, and a sense that I had lost everything - my child, my mother's love and protection, my father's love and protection, the life I had once imagined for myself - hollowed me out. I floated every day alone and disconnected, and could not find comfort or release. I understood clearly that my history had harmed me, had cut me off from the normal connections between people. Every day for five years I had been afraid of this disconnection, feeling the possibility of perfect detachment within my reach, like a river running alongside, inviting me to step into its current.

Mourning. At the death of the loved being, acute phase of narcissism: one emerges from sickness, from servitude. Then, gradually, freedom takes on a leaden hue, desolation settles in, narcissism gives way to a sad egoism, an absence of generosity.

moving on means we have to protect ourselves.

Mr. Lisbon knew his parental and neighborly duty entailed putting the retainer in a Ziploc bag, calling the Kriegers, and telling them their expensive orthodontal device was in safe keeping. Acts like theses -- simple, humane, conscientious, forgiving -- held life together. Only a few days earlier he would have been able to perform them. But now he took the retainer and dropped it in the toiler. He pressed the handle. The retainer, jostled int he surge, disappeared down the porcelain throat, and, when waters abated, floated triumphantly, mockingly, out, Mr. Lisbon waited for the tank to refill and flushed again, but the same thing happened. The replica of the boy's mouth clung to the white slope.

Mrs. Sussex said Byron’s loss would grow more bearable. But here was the nub: he didn’t want to lose his loss. Loss was all he had left of his mother. If time healed the gap, it would be as if she’d never been there.

My brother buried his resentment that day. But resentment buried is not gone. It is like burying a seed: for a season it may stay hidden in the dark, but in the end, it will always grow. I did not see it, though we were still close, even at that age. I think now that to be close to someone can be to underestimate them. Grow too close, and you do not see what they are capable of; or you do not see it in time.

My boys. I don't have them to hold. What do I do with my arms?

My encounter with desperation while witnessing the death of a precious child changed me, teaching me that although we will have sad times, we can move on, chastened and changed but resilient and hopeful. Laurel showed me one way to live with hope as well as cancer as she thrived even when tumors grew within her small body. She exhibited how a child can push aside despair and appreciate as many moments as possible, to believe in the power of resurrection, both the human spirit and in a Biblical sense.

My father's voice may have grown quieter, as Lynn said it would, but I can see now that he actually left me something after all. He left me these little plucks of wisdom that spring forth when I need them most, and his perfectionist's insistence on finding the perfect tone for every song. He left me the twitch, that sudden jolt of my muscles when I see someone else on a stage, or when I realize my hands have been idle for too long. And he left me the yearning I get in the deepest fold of midnight when the rest of the world is sleeping, when the dark is too quiet or the air is too still, and something begins to strum in my gut. So maybe he didn't fail. Maybe neither of us did.

My father was dead, my mother was dead, I would need for a while to watch for mines, but I would still get up in the morning and send out the laundry. I would still plan a menu for Easter lunch. I would still remember to renew my passport. Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.

My friends love me terribly, and their grief will be a screaming storm if I die.

My heart broke when he died, split in half and fell down into my stomach or somewhere deep and muddy, and I'm still not sure where it is now. I hear it beating sometimes in my ears, or feel its fast pulse in my neck, like I do now; but in my chest, where it should be, it mostly just feels empty.

My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.

My heart is a harness of nothing, deflated balloon, and a place of loss.

My hands are dying.

My grief lies all within; and these external manner of laments are merely shadows of the unseen grief that swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.

My grief sought out all parts of my body it hadn't yet inhabited, and I felt like I might collapse in on myself right there, at last, spectacularly

My heart was my brother. And I no longer believe in a world that says he was too weak to deserve life.

My dear, we do not move on from grief; we move through it.

My experience is that God will meet us anywhere. Grieving badly and under the covers? He's there. Sitting at the cemetery, wishing it were you? You're not alone. Sitting on your child's bedroom floor still in your nightgown in the middle of the afternoon? He's holding you up. God will meet you anywhere

My friend lost his mother when we were at college. I spent a lot of nights talking with him. Lot of nights." He pauses. "I know what it's like. You don't just get over it. And it doesn't make any difference if you're supposedly a "grown-up". And it never goes away,

My head is already stuffed with grief I suppose like a pomegranate with its red seeds. I can only bleed grief, having no room for more.

My grandmother’s unkindness, for instance, was the result of repressed grief over three deaths: her parents, before she was twelve, and her firstborn child. I don’t recall ever seeing her smile. She was critical of everything and everyone. Table manners, posture, diction, wardrobe. My aunt, her mother’s staunchest defender, often reminded us that my grandmother suffered from accumulated sorrow, bottled up since childhood and cloaked in intellect and intolerance as she grew older. She was never able to grieve fully or mourn the amassed losses, my aunt had said. If we repress our grief, over time, it’s bound to harden the heart.

My heart is broken and I grieve, for I have known love. Your heart is broken and you grieve, for you have not.

My grief reminds me what is dear to my heart by what is no longer to be. Loss is a part of the movement of change, and the grief that accompanies loss is necessary in order to let the movement of change flow through. Tears are like a river releasing to open waters.

My heart’s been empty since you left - but still I refuse to put up a vacancy sign. I’m just not ready for anybody else to move in yet.

My inheritance is grief and sunlight and the ability to choose which to hold on to.