Quotes About Grief

So with the loss of my family as well as the man I had loved, every thread that had linked me to who I was had been abruptly cut. I felt as if I had simply floated off, untethered, to some unknown universe.

But I knew very well how the persona you chose to present to the world could be very different from what was inside. I knew how grief could make you behave in ways you couldn't even begin to understand.

She cried like someone heartbroken.

It is the death of hope that comes as the greatest relief

I thought he was the saddest person I had ever met, in those moments when I glimpsed him staring out the window.

Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else.

In truth, her grief made me uncomfortable. It was too close to a place I had been, and not long ago. I was wary of her sadness, as if it were contagious, and found myself looking for excuses to stay away from her, trying to keep myself busy so that I didn't have to absorb it too... And then I thought about his later years when I'd treated him almost as a part of the furniture. I hadn't written to him. I hadn't called him. I had just assumed he would be here as long as I wanted him to be.

There is nothing redemptive about the loss of a child, no lessons of value it can teach you. It is too big, too overwhelming, too black to articulate. It is a bleak, overwhelming physical pain, shocking in its intensity, and every time you think you might have moved forward an inch it swells back, like a tidal wave, to drown you again.

It was only when I followed Dad into our house and saw the empty chair that I was able to convince myself it was true. I would never see him again, never feel that curved old back under my fingertips as I hugged him, never again make him a cup of tea or interpret his silent words or joke with him about cheating at Sudoku.

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

She stopped and turned to me, as if she had suddenly thought of something. "You know, you don't have to be sad just to stay connected to him." - page 273 "Hey Lou!" she yelled. "I meant to say to you. Moving on doesn't mean you loved my dad any less, you know. I'm pretty sure even he would tell you that." - page 300

sobs that contained the death of dreams and the dread knowledge of months of heartbreak ahead.

Sometimes I felt as if we were all wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far we were waving or drowning.

It's not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you and makes you want to cry in the wrong places and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It's just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a hole. I don't know. It's like you become . . . a doughnut instead of a bun.

Aprendemos a conviver com a perda, com as pessoas que nos deixam. Porque elas permanecem conosco, mesmo não estando vivas, mesmo não respirando mais.

He stops before a perfect little painting in which she has pictured her spine as a cracked column. There is something about the grief in her eyes that won't let him look away. That is suffering, he thinks. He thinks about how long he's been moping about Sandrine, and it makes him feel embarrassed, self-indulgent. Theirs, he suspects, was not an epic love story like Diego and Frida's.

Someone who had lost a child, according to village wisdom, should be allowed to grieve in whichever way she chose; the awfulness was so unimaginable that unlike other life events—weddings, christenings, disappearing spouses—no one felt qualified to suggest a right or wrong way of dealing with

I had a near-death experience, but I can't say it gave me wisdom or gratitude for life or anything. I go to a grief-counselling group full of people who are as stuck as I am. But I haven't really done anything.

In truth, her grief made me uncomfortable. It was too close to a place I had been, and not that long ago. I was wary of her sadness, as if it were contagious, and found myself looking for excuses to stay away from her, trying to keep myself busy so that I didn't have to absorb it too.

I heard the priest murmur the familiar recitation about dust and ashes and my eyes filled with tears. I wiped them away with a handkerchief.

The door opened slowly, and there he stood, still in the same cornflower blue shirt I remembered from two summers previously, but a newer, shorter haircut, perhaps a vain attempt to combat the ageing effects of extreme grief.

you don't have to be sad just to stay connected to him.

do not let whatever happened with that foolish family next door dim your light. You are a courageous, gorgeous, tremendously kind little creature and I shall be forever grateful that their loss has been my gain. Thank you.

that no journey out of grief was straightforward. There would be good days and bad days. Today was just a bad day, a kink in the road, to be traversed and survived.