Quotes About Grief

los muertos pesan, no tanto por la ausencia, como por todo aquello que entre ellos y nosotros no ha sido dicho.

Da ich lange gelebt habe und von vielen Menschen zurückgelassen wurde, weiß ich unterdessen, daß die Toten einen nicht durch ihre Abwesenheit belasten, sondern durch das, was - zwischen ihnen und uns - nicht ausgesprochen wurde.

Los muertos persan, no tânto por su ausencia, como por lo que entre nosotros y ellos no ha sido dicho.

Dying did not bother her at all. We had spoken of this a little in the weeks before. For her, death was the portal to my father. She was eager to see him in heaven. Only one thing bothered her: she was worried, incredibly, that my father might not be there.

The dead have a long reach. And they can be patient. They wait till you are ready, and then they seep back into your heart and crack it open.

All losses are sad. The end of an important relationship is also a death. When people fall out of love with each other, or when what seemed like a solid friendship falls into ruin, the hope for a shared future--a hope that provided a context and a purpose to life--is gone. [p. 149]

change and loss and sadness and grief are the shared lot of all human beings ... we are all making our way from one end of life to the other hoping--for whatever intervals of time we can manage it--to feel safe and content and strong and at ease. [p.40]

I don't have kids; I've never lost a pet. My parents, grandparents, siblings, and in-laws are all alive and kicking. What do I know about losing someone you love?

That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses. Save them for my funeral, I'd said.

Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one's ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.

A ring of gold with the sun in it? Lies. Lies and a grief. --from The Couriers, written 4 November 1962

Why is crying so pleasurable? I feel clean, absolutely purged after it. As if I had a grief to get over with, some deep sorrow.

And this is how it stiffens, my vision of that seaside childhood. My father died, we moved inland. Whereon those nine first years of my life sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle—beautiful, inaccessible, obsolete, a fine, white flying myth.

A Better Resurrection I have no wit, I have no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numbed too much for hopes or fears; Look right, look left, I dwell alone; A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief No everlasting hills I see; My life is like the falling leaf; O Jesus, quicken me.

I laid my face to the smooth face of the marble and howled my loss into the cold salt rain

Jilted My thoughts are crabbed and sallow, My tears like vinegar, Or the bitter blinking yellow Of an acetic star. Tonight the caustic wind, love, Gossips late and soon, And I wear the wry-faced pucker of The sour lemon moon. While like an early summer plum, Puny, green, and tart, Droops upon its wizened stem My lean, unripened heart.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God, Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two-- The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

I see the eyes but not the tears This is my affliction.

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon . . . Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a "dying fall" Now that we talk of dying— And should I have the right to smile?

You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure, That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.

That sudden comprehension of the death of hope

He shouldn't have had to die. Nobody should have to die, Miriamele said slowly. Especially while they're still alive.

Briony's ladies-in-waiting kept their distance, as though their mistress had some illness which might spread—and indeed she did, Briony thought, because unhappiness was ambitious.