Best 451 quotes in «mourning quotes» category

Well, I'm sorry you couldn't make it either. I'm sorry I had to sit there in that church--which, by the way, had a broken air conditioner--sweating, watching all those people march down the aisle to look in my mother's casket and whisper to themselves all this mess about how much she looked like herself, even though she didn't. I'm sorry you weren't there to hear the lame choir drag out, song after song. I'm sorry you weren't there to see my dad try his best to be upbeat, cracking bad jokes in his speech, choking on his words. I'm sorry you weren't there to watch me totally lose it and explode into tears. I'm sorry you weren't there for me, but it doesn't matter, because even if you were, you wouldn't be able to feel what I feel. Nobody can. Even the preacher said so.

We never stopped being each other.

We often pity the poor, because they have no leisure to mourn their departed relatives, and necessity obliges them to labor through their severest afflictions: but is not active employment the best remedy for overwhelming sorrow--the surest antidote for despair? It may be a rough comforter: it may seem hard to be harassed with the cares of life when we have no relish for its enjoyments; to be goaded to labor when the heart is ready to break, and the vexed spirit implores for rest only to weep in silence: but is not labor better than the rest we covet? and are not those petty, tormenting cares less hurtful than a continual brooding over the great affliction that oppresses us? Besides, we cannot have cares, and anxieties, and toil, without hope--if it be but the hope of fulfilling our joyless task, accomplishing some needful project, or escaping some further annoyance.

We’re all carrying our coffins with us every day.” Or “We are all constantly cheating death.

[W]e’ve learned that grief can sometimes get loud, and when it does, we try not to speak over it.

We were a religious sect consisting of two people, and now half the congregation was gone. There would be no closure, no healing. I would simply adjust myself to a new and severely depleted reality. The world would come to an end, as it always does, one world at a time.

We would also have to say goodbye to the joy of watching this next generation soak up the massive quantities of love their grandmother would have given them, and seeing them learn that there was someone in the world who loved them as much as their parents did: a grandmother who was delighted by all their quirks and who thought they were the most amazing creatures on earth. It was an idealized view of the future-but it was the one I carried in my head, and I don't think it was far off from the one my brother and sister and father and mother had. I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.

What do you think of when you think of mourning?' Jenny asks. The question snaps me back to attention. I answer without really thinking. "I guess 'Funeral Blues' by W.H. Auden. I think it was Auden. I suppose that's not very original.' 'I don't know it.' 'It's a poem.' 'I gathered.' 'I'm just clarifying. It's not a blues album.' Jenny ignores my swipe at her intelligence. 'Does your response need to be original? Isn't that what poetry is for, for the poet to express something so personal that it ultimately is universal?' I shrug. Who is Jenny, even new Jenny, to say what poetry is for? Who am I for that matter? 'Why do you thin of that poem in particular?' "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, / Silence the pianos and with muffled drum / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.' I learned the poem in college and it stuck.

What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless.

What is clear is that meaning may not be something we find. We found no meaning in our son's death, or in the deaths of countless others. The most we could hope was that we might be able to create meaning.

When gorillas smell danger, they run around and call out to the rest of the primates in the jungle to warn them something evil is coming. And when one of their own dies, they mourn for days while beating themselves up in sadness for failing to save that gorilla, even if the cause of death was natural. And when one colony is mourning, their chilling echoes migrate to other colonies — and those neighbors, even if they are territorial rivals, will also grieve with them. When faced with a common danger, rivals turn into allies. And when faced with death, the loss of just one gorilla becomes the loss of the entire jungle.

What is it like when you lose someone you love?" Jane asked. "You die, too. And you wait around for your body to catch up.

What she had done over the past year had required an equivalent expenditure of energy to a year-long sprint, and when she thought of it that way it was obviously an unreasonable thing to do. Remaining sane--clinging and grasping at it, seeking to please a propriety constructed by people whose boyfriends had never killed themselves--was in fact the most insane thing she could have done, and anyone properly equipped by the right kind of experience would understand that.

When all that's left of me is love, Give me away.

What is dying? I am standing on the seashore. A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object and I stand watching her Till at last she fades from the horizon, And someone at my side says, “She is gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination. The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her; And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “She is gone”, There are others who are watching her coming, And other voices take up a glad shout, “There she comes” – and that is dying.

What is the measure of life But the distance travelled From womb to catacomb, Does the ever after take account?

What perishes is only really real. I twist the dial and you are everywhere.

When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it.

When my late father died — now I'm in mourning for my late mother — that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, "I will not let you go until you bless me.

When someone close to you dies, you feel like you might die too. It takes some of the life out of you for a time.

When she was dying, it was impossible to see forward to the next minute. What was happening — for whole weeks — was all that was happening and happening and happening. Months before that, I got the dumb soup wrong. How awful. It was all she wanted and I had gotten it wrong. Then, in the airless days when it was really happening, we started to power panic that we didn’t know enough. What should we do with your ashes? Water or dirt. Water or dirt. Once, she asked to just be thrown into the river where we used to go, still alive, but not living anymore. After it was done, I couldn’t go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t tell if I loved myself more or less. It wasn’t until later, when I moved in with him and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I remembered what had been circling in me: I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying.

When someone is grieving, you don’t have to say anything. Just be present. Be nonjudgmental. Let them cry, scream, or sit in silence. You don't have to fix them.

Why do we feel guilty, even when we've done nothing to bring on illness or death--even when we've done everything possible to prevent it? Suffering feels like punishment, as cultural anthropologists observe; no doubt that's one reason why people still tell the story of Adam and Eve, which interprets suffering that way.

When the Grim Reaper comes to call, words fail- they're just too small.

Why did you revive me?” Alecto repeated. “Well… uh, well….” Mandy hesitated, her voice full of sudden misery. “They say there are five stages of grief, you know… five stages. denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not in any particular order. Anyhow, I denied your death, I was angry about it, I bargained with Mearth to try and get her to un-bury your site and I was depressed about the whole ordeal. One thing I just froze up on though was acceptance. I just couldn’t accept your death. It was really cruel the way you died, and I missed you so much… Mearth, my parents, the cops, Dr. Pottie, they all thought I was crazy. When people think you’re crazy, that label automatically dehumanizes you, because people can use it to discredit everything you say with, “oh, pay no mind to her, she’s just this crazy lunatic with a dead imaginary friend.” I just wanted to do something, anything to make it all go away, and I decided that I wanted to revive you.

Why do they lie?” she asked herself aloud. “They say time makes losing someone you loved easier to deal with, but it only makes it worse.

Why not the Victorians and their sentimental grief-wreaths woven from a loved one's hair?

Wie ich heimschritt bemerkte ich mit einemmal vor mir meinen eigenen Schatten so wie ich den Schatten des anderen Krieges hinter dem jetzigen sah. Er ist durch all diese Zeit nicht mehr von mir gewichen dieser Schatten er überhing jeden meiner Gedanken bei Tag und bei Nacht vielleicht liegt sein dunkler Umriß auch auf manchen Blättern dieses Buches. Aber jeder Schatten ist im letzten doch auch Kind des Lichts und nur wer Helles und Dunkles Krieg und Frieden Aufstieg und Niedergang erfahren nur der hat wahrhaft gelebt.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn; And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

Who knows the minute in the moment of last breath?

Who says that all must vanish? Who knows, perhaps the flight of the bird you wound remains, and perhaps flowers survive caresses in us, in their ground. It isn't the gesture that lasts, but it dresses you again in gold armor--from breast to knees-- and the battle was so pure an Angel wears it after you.

Why do you always wear black?” She delighted me with her answer, the correct, the only, answer. “I’m in mourning for my life. I’m unhappy.

Why? Why was it that in cases of real love the one who is left does not more often follow the beloved by suicide? Only because the living must bury the dead? Because of the measured rites that must be fulfilled after a death? Because it is as though the one who is left steps for a time upon a stage and each second swells to an unlimited amount of time and he id watched by many eyes? Because there is a function he must carry out? Or perhaps, when there is love, the widowed must stay for the resurrection of the beloved - so that the one who has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created for a second time in the soul of the living? Why?

William sees it all happen again. The pain is not in the event. The subjection to it and his powerless state each time is where his anguish lies. He is unable to influence the situation, despite his desire. He sees the nest outside his house. He sees the baby bird that fell. The mother bird cries frantically for her lost chick. William knows as he approaches the chick that if he touches it his scent will linger, and the mother will reject it. Circling around the fallen creature William hopes it will flee from him, back toward the tree from which it had fallen. His presence only intensifies the creature’s fear. It speeds to his left, heading for the street. Again William tries to flank the bird, but it is too frightened to return to the nest. The chick’s mother wails vainly. William walks into the street trying to herd the bird to safety. The stop light a block away has just turned green. The driver accelerates. William moves from the car’s path and it runs over the bird. The momentum from its wake lifts the bird to the underside of the car, breaking its neck, but not killing it. William watches the bird roll helplessly. It is silent for a second, before it begins to whimper. Its contorted head dangles limply from its body. The noise is tragic. The bird’s mother hears the chick’s pain, but nothing can be done. She laments. A second speeder crushes the chick, leaving only a wet feathered spot in the street. As the cars continue to pass, only one bird is heard. A mother’s grief falls deafly on an unconcerned world.

Would that I knew what others ignore, Such as has not been repeated, To say it and have my heart answer me, To inform it of my distress. Shift to it the load on my back, The matters that afflict me. Relate to it of what I suffer And sigh “Ah" with relief! of meditate on what has happened, The events that occur throughout the land: Changes take place, it is not like last year, One year is more irksome than the other. The land breaks up, is destroyed. Becomes [a wasteland]. Order is cast out, Chaos is in the council hail ; The ways of the gods are violated, Their provisions neglected. The land is in turmoil. There is mourning everywhere; Towns, districts are grieving, All alike are burdened by wrongs. One turns one’s back on dignity. The lords of silence are disturbed; As dawn comes every day. The face recoils from events. I cry out about it, My limbs are weighed down, I grieve in my heart. It is hard to keep silent about it, Another heart would bend; But a heart strong in distress: It is a comrade to its lord. Had I a heart skilled in hardship, I would take my rest upon it. Weigh it down with words of grief. Lay on it my malady! He said to his heart: Come, my heart, I speak to you. Answer me my sayings! Unravel for me what goes on in the land, Why those who shone are overthrown. I meditate on what has happened: While trouble entered in today, And turmoil will not cease tomorrow, Everyone is mute about it. The whole land is in great distress, Nobody is free from erime; Hearts are greedy. He who gave orders takes orders, And the hearts of both submit. One wakes to it every day. And the hearts do not reject it. Yesterday's condition is like today’s None is wise enough to know it, None angry enough to cry out, One wakes to suffer each day. My malady is long and heavy. The sufferer lacks strength to save himself From that which overwhelms him. It is pain to be silent to what one hears, It is futile to answer the ignorant. To reject a speech makes enmity; The heart does not accept the truth, One cannot bear a statement of fact, A man loves only his own words. Everyone builds on crookedness, Right-speaking is abandoned. I spoke to you, my heart, answer you me, A heart addressed must not be silent, Lo, servant and master fare alike, There is much that weighs upon you!

Wracking sobs rip from the innermost chamber of my heart, and I give into them, allowing them to fully take over. Pain lances me on all sides, and I bury my head in my knees, giving in to the heartache.

And in the afternoon they entered a land - but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay.

You breathe upon us now through solid assertions of yourself: teaspoons, goblets, seas of carpet, a forest of old plants to be watered an old man in an adjoining room to be touched and fed. And all this universe dares us to lay a finger anywhere, save exactly as you would wish it done.

Your dying was a difficult enterprise. First, petty things took up your energies, The small but clustering duties of the sick, Irritant as the cough’s dry rhetoric. Those hours of waiting for pills, shot, X-ray Or test (while you read novels two a day) Already with a kind of clumsy stealth Distanced you from the habits of your health.

You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair.

You had to feel the swell change. You had to go with the change.

You have no choice about how you feel about this. Your only choice is whether to feel it now or later." Although her comment helped a little at first, during the next twenty-five years I would keep discovering that how much I was able to feel, or not, and when, was not a matter of choice.

You know, I still can't get my head around what happened to Ana. She was there last week. She lent me a pen in English class. How can someone go from lending a pen to being dead?

You looked inhuman when you were dying, Doc, your eyes glistened like dimming stars, you were wasting away and life was leaving you piecemeal, your soul no longer fit your body, you hated it and I hated it and I couldn't recognize you and I couldn't see you and I was frightened and I never knew what to do, I looked for the man I love in you and I searched for who I used to be around you and I couldn't find either.

You never hear widows voice the sentiment, but I could stave off companionship indefinitely. Sex, not so much.

You want to move on, but to do that you have to let her go, and you don't want to let her go, so you don't move on.

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

Every time someone in your life dies, you realize you're not invincible and you have to wonder if we're celebrating life or if we're mourning a death.

Home, as far as I'm concerned, is the place you have to leave. And then, if you're like me, spend the rest of your life mourning.