Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good — good in a different way then before, but nevertheless good. I will never recover from my loss and I will never got over missing the ones I lost. But I still cherish life. . . . I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. But I still celebrate the life I have found because they are gone. I have lost, but I have also gained. I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment.

~ Gerald L. Sittser

Gerald L. Sittser Faith Grace Grief Loss Mourning

I remembered that once, as a child, I was filled with wonder, that I had marveled at tri-folded science projects, encyclopedias, and road atlases. I left much of that wonder somewhere between Mrs.Wheeler's class and Mondawmin Mall, somewhere between the schools and the streets. Now I had the privilege of welcoming it back like a long-lost friend, though our reunion was laced with grief; I mourned over all the years that were lost. The mourning continues. Even today, from time to time, I find myself on beaches watching six-year-olds learn to surf, or at colleges listening to sophomores slip from English to Italian, or at cafés seeing young poets flip though 'The Waste Land,' or listening to the radio where economists explain economic things that I could've explored in my lost years, mourning, hoping that I and all my wonder, my long-lost friend, had not yet run out of time, though I know that we all run out of time, and some of us run out of it faster.

~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates Inertia Meaning Mortality Mourning Purpose Regret Wasted Time

I must love and be loved. I must feel that my dear and chosen friends are happier through me. When I have wandered out of myself in my endeavour to shed pleasure around, I must again return laden with the gathered sweets on which I feed and live. Permit this to be, unblamed—permit a heart whose sufferings have been, and are, so many and so bitter, to reap what joy it can from the necessity it feels to be sympathized with—to love.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Friendship Grief Happiness Love Mourning Suffering

She said once that time is nothing to me but a series of bookmarks that I use to jump back and forth through the text of my life, returning again and again to the events that mark me in the eyes of my more astute colleagues, as bearing all the characteristics of the classic melancholic.

~ Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane Coping Dead Depression Family Friendship Grief Lost Melancholy Mental Illness Mourning Professional Reflection Regret Remember Sad The Past

How do you mourn endless numbers of people in endless numbers of places? Is there a form for it, a requisite time and place for mourning? Is there ever an end to it? Can there ever be an end to it?

~ Rosario Morales

Rosario Morales Mourning People

The world is groaning and mourning in pain and ignorance, because the people do not know much about the principles of God

~ Sunday Adelaja

Sunday Adelaja God Groaning Ignorance Know Mourning Pain People Principles World

The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.

~ Kristina Mcmorris

Kristina Mcmorris Drama Grief Loss Mourning Tragedy War World War Ii

A woman protested saying, Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it..

~ Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran Comforting Delusions Mourning Sorrow War

In the daylight we knowwhat’s gone is gone,but at night it’s different.Nothing gets finished,not dying, not mourning

~ ;Margaret Atwood

;Margaret Atwood Death Dream Dreams Dying Grief Mourning Nightmare Nightmares

It's all rather political, mourning is.

~ Melina Marchetta

Melina Marchetta Mourning Politics

If I believe, truly believe our soulsare meant to cross paths, in each andevery life, traversing millennia and repeatingthis sweet interaction time and time againThen what is one lifetimewhere those interactions arecut short- For the Departed

~ Abby Rosmarin

Abby Rosmarin Death Death Quotes Life Life Quotes Mourning Poetry

If I were to believe in God enough to call him a murderer, then I might also believe enough that he, as a spirit, exists beyond death; and therefore only he could do it righteously. For the physical being kills a man and hatefully sends him away, whereas God, the spiritual being, kills a man and lovingly draws him nigh.

~ Criss Jami

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Some things happen for a reason, Others just come with the season.

~ Ana Claudia Antunes

Ana Claudia Antunes Breakups Circumstances Cycle Of Life Death Decisiins Faith Happen Happening Hopes And Dreams Learning Life And Living Life Lessons Meaning Of Life Mourning Quotes About Life Reason Season Separation Speculations Spiritual

You can't love your mother or father if you don't also have the capacity to grieve their deaths and, perhaps even more so, grieve parts of their lives.

~ Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck Childhood Determination Enlightenment Father Grief Mother Mourning Pain Parents

Yes. We both have a bad feeling. Tonight we shall take our bad feelings and share them, and face them. We shall mourn. We shall drain the bitter dregs of mortality. Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled, but halved. No man is an island.

~ Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Mortality Mourning Pain Sharing

Raw anguish slithers through my brittle bones as the deathly call rots the air. Who murdered you old friend? The forest has no words to identify the hand, only erratic echo.

~ H.s. Crow

H.s. Crow Anguish Bones Death Loss Mourning Murder Pain

He needs a looser association. He needs something that implies a man who wants the ice shard to remain in his chest, who's learned to love the sensation of being pierced.

~ Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham Death Heartache Loss Love Mourning Pain Sorrow Suffering

I guess it's the same way trees grow around the very vines that are killing them, so they're strangled and sustained all at once. After a long time, even pain can be a comfort.

~ Lauren Oliver

Lauren Oliver Abuse Abusive Relationship Death Life Loss Love Mourning Page 223 Pain Trees Vines

Only Certain offered no enticements, for she knew nothing could ease the pain. Not books or photography or food. Not even love.

~ Billie Letts

Billie Letts Loss Mourning Pain Sadness Suffering

This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations.

~ Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad Ache Depression Empathy Heart Heartbreak Lost Lost Love Love Mournful Mourning Music Nostalgia Regret Ruminating Sadness Suicide Thinking Tradgedy

Mandy, I hardly think this was appropriate, not after… you know… after the funeral we haven’t had the money for any of your weird little games and I was hoping you’d be more mature now that Jud’s gone,” her father had disappointedly added. “How much’d that cake cost you?”“It’s paid for,” Mandy had argued, but her voice had sounded tiny in the harbour wind. “I used the cash from my summer job at Frenchy’s last year and I… it was my birthday, dad!”“You can’t even be normal about this one thing, can you?” her father had complained.Mandy hadn’t cried, she’d only stared back knowingly, her voice shaky. “…I’m normal.

~ Rebecca Mcnutt

Rebecca Mcnutt Angst Argument Birthday Brother Cake Death Of A Sibling Depression Father Funeral Grief Loss Memory Money Mourning Normal Nostalgia Parent Sibling

Loss alone is but the wounding of a heart, it is memory that makes it our ruin.

~ Brian Ruckley

Brian Ruckley Heart Loss Memory Mourning Moving On

The graveyard is the everlasting home of every man.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Lailah Gifty Akita Advice Belief Christian Death Death Of A Child Death Of A Loved One Death Wish Die Dying Faith Grave Graveyard Humanity Lessons In Life Life And Death Life And Living Life Philosophy Mankind Mourners Mourning Society Sympathy Wisdom Wise Words

Do you know what I remember? When [my father] read to me. Stupid things, dragons and heroes. He wouldn’t turn a page until I reached over and took his hand. That big man made every step of the story my choice. I loved that. He died of the wasting, in a Denerim ward. Those last weeks I read to him. I had to take his hand to turn the pages. And I couldn’t tell if he was too weak, or if it was the old game…No one tells you how to mourn. And when someone says, “move on”, you take their hand and say “my choice.

~ Aveline Valen

Aveline Valen Dragon Age Dragon Age 2 Dragons Family Heroes Inspirational Loss Mourning

He took a deep breath in, still managing himself as if he were resisting temptation. He was a soldier, his father was in the service, too. Crying wasn't something Morell men did. They just didn't. He hadn't cried at Robbie Morell's funeral.So he wasn't going to now.

~ Luke Taylor

Luke Taylor Breath Cry Crying Death Family Father Funeral Grief Iraq Loss Man Mourning Service Soldier Son War

Seeing his daughter slowly die, coupled with his infinite sadness and misery, the clockmaker becomes a recluse to the tower of the castle and begins to build something behind closed doors, not even his daughter knows what he’s up to. For five years, she only sees him briefly at meal-times before locking himself up in the tower once again......Did he have a bathroom in the tower?Yes, Jack. A big one! En-suite! Power-shower and spa! Where was I!?

~ Jonathan Dunne

Jonathan Dunne Bathroom Behind Closed Doors Bereavment Castle Clock Clockmaker Death Funny Grief Hilarious Loss Mourn Mourning Potty Potty Time Power Recluse Sarcasm Shower Spa Toilet Weird

I have died at the ripe age of twenty.Smile, for the world didn't get a chance to disappoint me.I have died at the mature age of ninety.Smile, for my life was more than satisfying.I have died suddenly—out of the blue.Smile, for I didn't have to fall ill before you.I have died from a long illness.Smile, for I had the chance to say goodbye.I did not want to leave this Earth.But smile, for I am still here among you.Why are you crying?Can you not see I am smiling?

~ Kamand Kojouri

Kamand Kojouri Age Chance Courage Cry Crying Death Die Died Disappoint Dying Earth Faith Goodbye Grief Guidance Hope Ill Illness Kamand Kamand Kojouri Kojouri Losing Loss Mourn Mourning Ninety Sad Satisfy Satisfying Smile Smiling Suddenly Twenty Upset

I did not know the work of mourningIs like carrying a bag of cementUp a mountain at nightThe mountaintop is not in sightBecause there is no mountaintopPoor Sisyphus griefI did not know I would struggleThrough a ragged underbrushWithout an upward path...Look closely and you will seeAlmost everyone carrying bagsOf cement on their shouldersThat’s why it takes courageTo get out of bed in the morningAnd climb into the day.

~ Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch Courage Grief Life Mourning Weight

The tragedy in life to mourn over is the death of what lies within a person who is still alive. The death of a potential is a mess of destiny!

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Israelmore Ayivor Danger Death Death Of A Dream Destiny Dream Killer Food For Thought Gifts Israelmore Ayivor Life Mourn Mourning Passion Person Potential Potentials Talent Talents Tragedy

We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.

~ C.s. Lewis

C.s. Lewis Expectations Experience Grief Mourning Others Personal Experience Reality Suffering

You never hear widows voice the sentiment, but I could stave off companionship indefinitely. Sex, not so much.

~ Abby Fabiaschi

Abby Fabiaschi Grief Mourning Sex Widowhood

I feel about my dogs now, and all the dogs I had prior to this, the way I feel about children—they are that important to me. When I have lost a dog I have gone into a mourning period that lasted for months.

~ Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore Children Dog Mourning

She wished for a moment that they were all children again. It still seemed extraordinary to her, that everything had turned out the way it had.

~ Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters Childhood Children Growing Up Hoping Longing Mourning Praying Wishing

To speak of ‘trying again’ while her ghost was still in the room was an insult to both the child gone before and the child that might come after. The child before might be merely a precursor, a practice run, a whole person deemed sufficiently remembered and loved; while the child after might be a bandaid child, a second child, a replacement child. Without time taken to wait – not until the first child was forgotten but until the hideous burning fire of grief had dulled – neither child could be fully a person, but just a function of the other.

~ Anna Spargo-Ryan

Anna Spargo-Ryan Children Grief And Loss Mourning

Pak Karman hugged his wife’s gravestone tightly. “You left without saying farewell!” The whole of the graveyard was ablaze with light.

~ Mohamed Latiff Mohamed

Mohamed Latiff Mohamed Alfian Sa At Death Epigram Books Fiction Grief Latiff Loss Love Mohamed Latiff Mohamed Mourning Novel Sg Lit Sglit Singapore Translation

They will try to ascribe a purpose to my death, as though it were a punishment, but don’t you do so, in order that I continue to live in all the shadows of your longing. I will always be in your sleep and your wakefulness. I will be with you praying, propitiating and yearning for you, in sadness, in sorrow, in dismay and in the most profound happiness.

~ Mohamed Latiff Mohamed

Mohamed Latiff Mohamed Alfian Sa At Epigram Books Fiction Grief Latiff Loss Mohamed Latiff Mohamed Mourning Novel Sg Lit Sglit The Widower Translation Widower

I think, therefore I am. My fingers that caress these rose and frangipani petals are a result of my thoughts. I feel content, tender. I feel entranced, ecstatic and besotted by the fragrance of the flowers and this is because of my thoughts.

~ Mohamed Latiff Mohamed

Mohamed Latiff Mohamed Alfian Sa At Epigram Books Fiction Grief Latiff Loss Mohamed Latiff Mohamed Mourning Novel Sg Lit The Widower Translation

Grief is NOT a mental illness or an emotional disorder. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never experienced it for themselves.

~ Rebecca Mcnutt

Rebecca Mcnutt Bereavment Death Death Of A Loved One Grief Loss Loss Of A Loved One Mourning Psychiatry Psychology

All the whackjob psychologists out there will tell you that grief is a process. Some say it has five stages. Others say that grief should only last two years at the lost, otherwise it's abnormal. Putting an expiration date of grief though is like putting out the flame on a burning candle. It might stop the candle from melting down and falling apart, but in the long run the candle goes solid, freezes in a catatonic state. Take away a person's grief and guaranteed they'll only be a frozen shell of a human being afterwards. Grief is only love, it's nothing to hide or send away with happy pills and mother's little helpers. Grief is a lifeline connecting two people who are in different realms together, and it's a sign of loyalty and hope.

~ Rebecca Mcnutt

Rebecca Mcnutt Burning Candle Death Depression Doctors Drugs Dying Flame Frozen Grief Hope Light Lonely Loss Love Medical Mother S Little Helpers Mourning Psychology

From Orient PointThe art of living isn't hard to muster:Enjoy the hour, not what it might portend.When someone makes you promises, don't trust herunless they're in the here and now, and just herwilling largesse free-handed to a friend.The art of living isn't hard to muster:groom the old dog, her coat gets back its luster;take brisk walks so you're hungry at the end.When someone makes you promises, don't trust herto know she can afford what they will cost herto keep until they're kept. Till then, pretendthe art of living isn't hard to muster.Cooking, eating and drinking are a clusterof pleasures. Next time, don't go round the bendwhen someone makes you promises. Don't trust herpast where you'd trust yourself, and don't adjust herwords to mean more to you than she'd intend.The art of living isn't hard to muster.You never had her, so you haven't lost herlike spare house keys. Whatever she opens,when someone makes you promises, don't. Trust yourart; go on living: that's not hard to muster.

~ Marilyn Hacker

Marilyn Hacker Betrayal Fatalism Grief Loss Love Mourning Perseverance Promises Strength Trust Will
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