My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.

The loss of my child broke my spirit.

This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been,...

Live for your country, die to yourself; live for yourself, die to your country.

It reminds me that no embrace will ever feel the same again, because no one will ever be like her again, because she’s gone. She’s gone, and crying feels so useless, so stupid, but it’s...

I’m convinced that the world, more than ever, needs the music only you can make. And if it takes extra courage to keep playing in spite of your loss, many will applaud the effort. And...

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.

Loss has no friend, no allies, no benefit to the human spirit.

The process of grief and loss is as unique as your personal DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid); no two individuals will have the same experiences or relationship to grief.

Listen to me: die after me, all right? I don’t care what else you do, where you go, how you screw up your life, just… survive. Outlive me, please.

There is no greater grief, than when a parent losses a child.

I tell you of loss, my child, so you will listen, slowly, and know that in life every emotion is fated to rear itself within your being. Don’t judge it proper or ugly. It’s simply...

Some thoughts should never be conceived. Some questions should never be asked, because they have no answer, and the questions themselves serve only to haunt with grinding guilt and second guessing.

The loss of a child exploits the emotions of each individual it encounters.

An anchor should be someone who is personally open and willing to communicate.

Allow yourself to be an anchor and anchored by others.

Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.

You may say suicide is a loss of control and cowardly. Foolish as it may sound, I am prepared to argue.

Destroy me. Take pity and send me on my way.

Avevo appena scoperto l’orribile notizia che ogni essere umano scopre un giorno o l’altro: quello che ami, tu lo perderai.

Sometimes I hear the world discussed as the realm of men. This is not my experience. I have watched men fall to the ground like leaves. They were swept up as memories, and burned. History...

Everything changed…even the things we didn’t want to.

Zaznał pełnych litości spojrzeń, zająknień, współczującego kiwania głową, doświadczył niby to solidarnych męskich uścisków i niby to kamrackich walnięć w bark. Nasłuchał się apeli, by się trzymał i był twardym. Powodujących, że od razu miękł...

There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss.

one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive.

It was too perfect to last,’ so I am tempted to say of our marriage. But it can be meant in two ways. It may be grimly pessimistic – as if God no sooner saw...

And that’s what makes you angry. What makes you hate. You don’t want to believe that sometimes bad things happen just because they do.

His consolation was that at least he had known her as the world had not, and the pain of living without her was no more than a penalty he paid for the privilege of having...

Þæs ofereode, þisses sƿa mæg.

There was nothing to see in the room, but his brain pulled multiple vivid memories to the forefront of his mind. Entering the house as husband and wife, with Angela holding onto his arm. The...

His name was Theo.

Perhaps, this is what love has always been, whether it is for a woman of for a cause — the readiness to give and not ask for anything in return, the unquestioning willingness to lose...

Why she was the happy one when she was dying, and I just can’t seem to manage anything when I’m living.

I began to feel that nature itself was nurturing me, reminding me that life still offered beauty and calm, and that I was also made out of these elements.

I listen to the rain talk to the leaves. She tells a story of love and leaving (isn’t that always the story? Isn’t that always the punchline?) She tells it softly like someone who has...

The lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.

You can’t undo loss. You can’t unmake a mistake. (What The Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth?)

O world, world when I was younger I thought there was some order governing you and your deeds. But now you seem to be a labyrinth of errors, a frightful desert, a den of wild...

I never used to realize it, I guess. I try and play it along and just not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble at all if I hadn’t run...

She had never understood either of the men she had loved and so she had lost them both. Now, she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved...

…when the pain subsides the grief remains.

Omnia mutantur; nihil interit

Yes, it’s worth it. The pain of sorrow is terrible and hard to bear, but the joy of love makes it worthwhile. p123

Why talk about something you can’t do anything about?

You’d have thought that after suffering such a loss nothing else would matter to her but that didn’t seem to be how it worked. She was fearful about everything now. It was as if she...

Goldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai trees twist in miniature. I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow...

In the midst of the darkness of loss, I found light. Admittedly, in those first weeks, it might have been but a single small spark I sensed deep inside of me, but that spark guided...

I’ve seen too much sacrifice to believe that God is behind all of it, and I’ve seen sacrifice that has no indicia of the hand of God at all. Loss is not always part of...