Quotes About Loss

Sophie had been chiefly concerned in those days whether her mother would be able to bear the ordeal of losing two children at the same moment. But now, as Mother stood there, so brave and good, Sophie had a feeling of sudden release from anxiety. Again her mother spoke; she wanted to give her daughter something she might hold fast to: You know, Sophie - Jesus. Earnestly, firmly, almost imperiously, Sophie replied, Yes, but you too. Then she left - free, fearless, and calm.

An enemy soldier never seemed to be alone--one human being like any other--but followed, crushed from all directions by innumerable ghosts, the missing and the dead. Speaking to him wasn't like speaking to a solitary man but to an invisible multitude; nothing that was said was either spoken or heard with simplicity: there was always that strange sensation of being no more than lips that spoke for so many others, others who had been silenced.

When you love someone as much as that, you don't believe they can die. You think your love protects them. Even if he doesn't come back, even if he gets lost in the snow or is hit by a stray bullet, she'll wait for him.

Barna står ved kirkeporten. Gå og hent dem der. De som har mistet barna sine, kan gå og hente dem ved kirken.

My God! What is this country doing to me? Because it has rejected me, let us consider it coldly, let us watch it lose the honour and its life.

Ancora un'ora persa, sprofondata nel nulla, che è colata via tra le dita come acqua e che non tornerà più... Vorrei andarmene lontano, oppure morire....

Tutti e due pensavano ai giovani – i loro fratelli, i loro amici – le cui ossa erano in decomposizione sotto terra, nelle innumerevoli fosse comuni. Loro, i sopravvissuti, adesso lo sapevano, di essere mortali. È una lezione che di solito si impara da adulti, ma quelli che hanno dovuto apprenderla a vent'anni non la scordano più. Ah, com'era importante affrettarsi a respirare, baciare, bere, fare l'amore!

Michel was first imprisoned at Creusot, then taken to Drancy. On 6 November 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz and sent immediately to the gas chamber. There is then a two-year gap in the correspondence.

Now and again he let out a sort of clipped, bitter laugh. "Good God, to have fought in '14 and then see this Ã¢â'¬Â¦

My God! what is this country doing to me? Since it is rejecting me, let us consider it coldly, let us watch as it loses its honour and its life. And the other countries? What are they to me? Empires are dying. Nothing matters. Whether you look at it from a mystical or a personal point of view, it's just the same. Let us keep a cool head. Let us harden our heart. Let us wait.

It's sad," said Lucile, thinking of all the girls whose youth was passing them by in vain: the men were gone, prisoners or dead. The enemy took their place. It was deplorable, but no one would even know in the future. It would be one of those things posterity would never find out, or would refuse to see out of a sense of shame.

She could feel a bell-shaped pink flower brushing her lips. Later, she would remember that while they were stretched out on the ground, a small white butterfly was lazily flitting from one flower to another. Finally she heard a voice whisper, "It's over; they're gone." She stood up and automatically brushed the dust from her skirt. No one, she thought, had been hurt. But after walking for a few minutes, they saw the first fatalities: two men and a woman.

To lose somebody is to lose not only their person but all those modes and manifestations into which their person has flowed outwards; so that in losing a beloved one may find so many things, pictures, poems, melodies, places lost too: Dante, Avignon, a song of Shakespeare's, the Cornish sea.

Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved

I felt a deep grief that crouched and stayed still as if it was afraid to move.

And now she had run into an emptiness more final than any words of rejection. He was gone and would make himself a stranger to her for ever.

If there is any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bite.

What greater torment than to see that light, and then to see it eternally withdrawn?

We shall meet, but as strangers. It is the end of an era. A whole part of my life is torn away.

How soon we cover up the horror of death and loss, if we can, with almost any sort of explanation, as if we had to justify the very fate which had maimed us.

It's terrible that one doesn't love people forever.

It's so sad, all our house seems broken apart, everyone is going.

She thought, this is the end of happiness, darkness begins here.

But the spark vanished, there was no longed-for recognition, no dawning sign of recovery. The love she had learnt in tending him was an enclosed love, muted and maimed, already mourning. They would never communicate now.