Quotes About Loss

Ah, God, it's barbaric, however you look at it,' he told Ruth. 'What, cremation?' she asked. 'Death.

Now she settled into the dailiness of grief—not that first piercing stab but the steady, persistent ache of it, the absence that feels like a presence.

In a way," I told Peggy, "it's like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. It's still there, but the sharpest edges are Ã¢â'¬Â¦ muffled, sort of. Then, every now and then, I lift a corner of the blanket, just to check, and—whoa! Like a knife! I'm not sure that will ever change.

The thing about old girlfriends, Micah reflected, is that each one subtracts something from you. You say goodbye to your first great romance and move on to the next, but you find you have less to give to the next. A little chip of you has gone missing; you're not quite so wholly there in the new relationship.

The thing about old girlfriends, Micah reflected, is that each one subtracts something from you. You say goodbye to your first great romance and move on to the next, but you find you have less to give to the next. A little chip of you has gone missing; you're not quite so wholly there in the new relationship. And less there in the one after that, and even less in the one after that one.

Two losses, in fact. Two very dear children: Emily and Nicholas. It was true that these days there happened to be two very dear grown-ups who were also named Emily and Nicholas, but they weren't the same people. It was just as if those children had died. He'd been in mourning ever since.

Their growing up amounted, therefore, to a gradual dimming of the light at her bedroom door, as if they took some radiance with them as they moved away from her. She should have planned for it better, she sometimes thought. She should have made a few friends or joined a club. But she wasn't the type. It wouldn't have consoled her.

People who hadn't suffered a loss yet struck me as not quite grown up.

I am the bicycle you lost in the park the summer you turned twelve… You didn't think I was so great anymore… You started finding fault with all I said...

Not invade her privacy! Just sit back and give up on her, as if she were a missing pet or mitten, or dropped penny.

But what helped more was to walk down a crowded sidewalk sometimes, or through a busy shopping mall, and reflect that almost everyone there had suffered some terrible loss. Sometimes more than one loss. Many had lost their dearest loves, but look at them: they were managing. They were putting one foot in front of the other. Some were even smiling. It could be done.

He had been forty-three years old—too young to think of making funeral plans. So all of that was left to Willa

He didn't talk about Derek at all and he avoided any contact with Willa or his brother, instead spending his evenings shut away in his room twiddling tunelessly on his guitar. Sean was the opposite: he followed Willa around pestering her for every detail of his father's death.

On grieving: I broke my days into separate moments. See, it's true, I didn't have any more to look forward to. But on the other hand, there were these individual moments that I could still appreciate. Like drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning. Working on something fine in my workshop. Watching a baseball game on TV.

What nobody understood about David, with the possible exception of Greta, was that he had suffered a very serious loss in his life. Two losses, in fact. Two very dear children: Emily and Nicholas. It was true that these days there happened to be two very dear grown-ups who were also named Emily and Nicholas, but they weren't the same people. It was just as if those children had died. He'd been in mourning ever since.

When she was a child she used to imagine that her mother might painlessly die somehow and her father would marry a lovely, serene woman who would sit at Willa's bedside when she had a bad dream and lay a cool palm on her forehead.

I'm a roomful of broken hearts, he tells her.

The trouble with discarding bad memories was that evidently the good ones went with them

best cure for grief was shopping, especially for things to wear.

We've lost the last remaining chick in our nest! It's natural we would feel low." And she did feel low; no question about it. In many ways David was the child closest to her heart, although she'd expected to feel closer to her girls. After Alice and Lily left home it was just David and his parents, and the chaos died down and sometimes Mercy was able to hold actual brief conversations with him.

But my family's passing came so sudden. Left me strap-hanging in empty space, like.

In a way," I told Peggy, "it's like the grief has been covered over with some

Two losses, in fact. Two very dear children: Emily and Nicholas. It was true that these days there happened to be two very dear grown-ups who were also named Emily and Nicholas, but they weren't the same people. It was just as if those children had died. He'd been in mourning ever since. And now

Seems like you are always loving the people that fly away from you, Ben Joe, and flying away from the people that love you.