All Quotes By Tag: Grief

“There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it.”

“You can not die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.”

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

“grief is a housewhere the chairshave forgotten how to hold usthe mirrors how to reflect usthe walls how to contain usgrief is a house that disappearseach time someone knocks at the dooror rings the bella house that blows into the airat the slightest gustthat buries itself deep in the groundwhile everyone is sleepinggrief is a house where no one can protect youwhere the younger sisterwill grow older than the older onewhere the doorsno longer let you inor out”

“There once was a girl who found herself dead.She peered over the ledge of heavenand saw that back on earthher sister missed her too much,was way too sad,so she crossed some pathsthat would not have crossed,took some moments in her handshook them upand spilled them like diceover the living world.It worked.The boy with the guitar collidedwith her sister.”There you go, Len,” she whispered. “The rest is up to you.”

“It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed. If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you cannot possibly imagine it.”

“When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.”

“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope”

“WHEN YOU’RE FEELING DOWN, ALWAYS BELIEVE THATTHE PAIN YOU’VE BEEN FEELING,WILL SOON GO AWAY, AND JOY IS ON THE WAY.”

“NEVER LOSE HOPEAS THE PAIN YOU’VE BEEN FEELING,WILL SOON GO AWAY, AND JOY IS ON THE WAY.”

“ALWAYS BELIEVE THAT:PAIN YOU’VE BEEN FEELINGWILL SOON GO AWAY.. ALWAYS BELIEVE THAT: JOY IS ON THE WAY.”

“Then the pulse.Then a pause.Then twilight in a box.Dusk underfoot.Then generations.—Then the same war by a different name.Wine splashing in the bucket.The erection, the era.Then exit Reason.Then sadness without reason.Then the removal of the ceiling by hand.—Then pages & pages of numbers.Then the page with the faint green stain.Then the page on which Prince Theodore, gravely wounded, is thrown onto a wagon.Then the page on which Masha weds somebody else.Then the page that turns to the story of somebody else.Then the page scribbled in dactyls.Then the page which begins Exit Angel.Then the page wrapped around a dead fish.Then the page where the serfs reach the ocean.Then a nap.Then the peg.Then the page with the curious helmet.Then the page on which millet is ground.Then the death of Ursula.Then the stone page they raised over her head.Then the page made of grass which goes on.—Exit Beauty.—Then the page someone folded to mark her place.Then the page on which nothing happens.The page after this page.Then the transcript.Knocking within.Interpretation, then harvest.—Exit Want.Then a love story.Then a trip to the ruins.Then & only then the violet agenda.Then hope without reason.Then the construction of an underground passage between us.Srikanth Reddy, “Burial Practice” from Facts for Visitors. Copyright © 2004 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission of The University of California Press. Source: Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004)”

“Poem (Internal Scene) To make beauty out of pain, it damns the eyes—No, dams the eyes. See how they overflow?No damns them, damns them, and so they cry.What shape can I swallow to make me whole?Baby’s bird-shaped block, blue-painted woodThat fits in the bird-hole of the painted wood box?The skeleton leaf? The skeleton key? LoudKnock when the shape won’t unlock any locks.I hear it through the static in the baby’s roomWhen the monitor clicks on and off, soundOf sea-ice cracking against the jagged sea-rocks,Laughing gull in the gale. What is it dives downPast sight, down there dark with the other blocks?It can’t be seen, only heard. A kind of curse,This kind curse. Forgive me. Blessing that hurts.”

“Although they remain silent companions throughout my life, I feel their absence the most when I’m happiest. I know it seems strange, even counterintuitive. It’s hard to explain…. I guess that I wish they could be part of those moments—or perhaps the happy moments, instances of life going on without them, come with the fear of losing their constant presence in my thoughts and the knowledge that, in a way, they are being left behind…. In a way, grief reassures me that I still love them as much as when they were here, and that through me some part of them still exists in this world….”

“The young, thought Sharma, have this ability to suffer much in the time of grief, unlike the old who have seen enough sorrow and know it shall not stay forever. The young hardly know grief is like a thunderstorm. It comes whispering softly at first, a distant hum, a halo of vehemence in the sky, and then there is a sudden, violent, and copious outpouring; that drenches everything that comes in its way. It darkens the sky and turns every inch of green terrain dusky grey. But they don’t realize its ferocity will become less with the lapse of time, and the sun will shine bright and warm, and wash the land golden, and no one would be able to tell there had been a storm. They scarcely understand this essential unfolding of grief isn’t meant to last forever, and eventually, it shall come to pass.”