Quotes About Loss

Dementia is a particularly long farewell to the self. With most illnesses, death comes quite swiftly. With dementia, the flicker with which life ends is excruciatingly slowed.

There's an anticipated, ambiguous grief; a premature mourning of the self, or of the beloved other. During dementia's last stages, a beloved person may be there and yet absent, a powerful reminder of the self's loss.

To mourn someone who is still alive brings a particular, complicated pain. And often it brings guilt; to mourn someone who has not yet died is to consign them to a kind of death.

It's like she's the living dead,' says Pauline. 'A long time ago, I lost her. I talk, and there's no reaction. Sometimes, when she laughs, or something in the tone of her voice - then I recognise the way we were twenty years ago. You fill in the gaps and the memories. Then she leaves again. You say goodbye all the time.

You're supposed to gain things as you grow older in return for the things that you lose. But what had she gained? Dignity? She hadn't got that. Peace? No. Wisdom? It seemed unlikely. And what had she lost? Beauty, youth, innocence, possibility. Your past grows longer and your future shrinks. And you lose your parents and your children – often at the same time so that you go from being daughter and mother to being neither. What are you then?

They're all dead. They're all dead and they live in holes like this one. And I'm in one too. Everybody. The world's a place full of holes with dead people in them. And the moon's a ball all full of holes too and inside them there are other dead people.

Sono tutti morti. Sono tutti morti e vivono in buchi come questo. E in uno ci sono io. Tutti quanti. Il mondo è un posto pieno di buchi dove dentro ci sono i morti. E anche la luna è una palla tutta piena di buchi e dentro ci sono altri morti.

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

some torn in half, some blinded and maimed, others mutilated beyond all recognition.

He turned away, unable to watch as Fournier lowered the colours

To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose.

What I missed was what I missed every year when the season ended and abruptly the radio was quiet. I missed them.

Maybe that's nature's way. Making people you once loved less lovable, so that it won't be so hard when they go.

cuando se ha cumplido el ritual de lanzar tres puñados de tierra sobre la tumba de los difuntos éstos no regresan

The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over.

The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over.

When a unicorn is slain, men have destroyed again the image of beauty that they seek.

you almost believe that you will never come to the end of a roll of tape; and when you do, there is a feeling, nearly, though very briefly, of shock and grief.

TO LOSE SOMEONE YOU REALLY LOVE / IS HARD BEYOND BELIEF / YOUR HEART COMES CLOSE TO BREAKING POINT / AND NO ONE KNOWS THE GRIEF / MANY TIMES I'VE THOUGHT OF YOU / AND MANY TIMES I'VE CRIED / IF MY LOVE COULD HAVE SAVED YOU / YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE DIED.

When people die, we choose to forget the arguments. We wipe out the slights and the injustices. We turn our dead into saints and that clearly doesn't make the grieving process any easier.

that the human brain expects permanence. The cup is where you put it. The car is where you parked it (if it hasn't been towed away). The wine is still in the refrigerator where you left it. It's only people, the most complex, important, influential, life-changing elements of our lives, who are there and then are shockingly not-there. And it's surprisingly hard to get one's brain around that. So

If loving someone was reason enough to be able to stick around, then I'd still be there beside you. And if love was ever enough to save someone's life, then yours would have saved me, too. Because no one ever gave it more easily, or more generously, than you did.

in the caves of my heart, where pain taps out its rhythms and sorrow sets its loss, i am without direction.

This wave of nostalgia which constantly reminds us that we can never go home again.