Quotes from Richard Exley

Don't let anyone make you feel guilty because you are still grieving. Grief is a slow process and often takes as long as two years to complete its healing work. That doesn't mean that you will always hurt this badly, but it does mean that you should give yourself permission to take as much time as you need to work through your loss.

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don't really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man's life. I was happy before I ever met H. I've plenty of what are called "resources." People get over these things. Come, I shan't do so badly.… Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this "commonsense" vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.

Life can be difficult and no one escapes its challenges. Sooner or later you will find yourself pressed to your limits. It may come in the form of a broken relationship, or unemployment, or a serious illness, or the death of a loved one. When it comes you will be tempted to define your life by that painful experience. Don't succumb to that temptation. Refuse to define your life by any single event, whatever it may be. Its a real part of your life, but that is all--just a part.