“I miss him, and the pain of it is a yawning chasm, one into which I yearn to let myself fall.”
“We humans think we exist like this. Dadi gestured to the powders in their individual bowls. Apart. Single. Beautiful and vivid, but alone. … She upended the two bowls into the center of the larger container, and the powders came together. They were mixed somewhat, but still in their separate piles for the most part - Then Dadi continued, with each interaction with another soul, we begin to change. She put a finger into the pile of powders and began to stir gently. The powders mixed more the longer she stirred, red mingling with orange, losing its distinct form. We take pieces of them, and they take pieces of us. It s not bad. It s not good. It just is. By now the powders were completely mixed together, indistinguishable from each other. Our best friends, the ones we love the most, are the ones who can hurt us the most. Because look. She pointed down to the powders. We have had so many interactions, that we cannot separate their pieces from ours. And if we try, we would only be getting rid of some of the best parts of ourselves.”
“Every ray of sunshine, every drop of rain, every tear that falls, you are with me for I carry you in my heart forever.”
“We tell the story of our grief for two reasons: first, to solidify in our brains and hearts that life without our loved one is our new reality; and second, to realize that we are not alone. Just as grief is not a one-time event, telling the story of our loss is not a one-time event, either. We must share the story of what happened, to make sense of it for ourselves and to connect with others who are experiencing similar pain.”
“My time in seminary confirmed what I had learned about loss and life: that living with the end in mind can be an ennobling endeavor. That the more we embrace dying, the more we embrace living. That life was never meant to be about our self-interests but about being a source of love for others. That our presence is far more important than any technical know-how we may possess about religion or spirituality. That compassion and generosity of spirit will prevail over rigid thoughts and beliefs every single time. That sitting with discomfort can be far more intimate and helpful than trying to fix that which is unfixable. And that when something can be remedied, we must not allow ourselves to become passive but rather step in and fill the void. All of this is the essence of reverence.”
“No memories. No pain. I mean screw nostalgia. I don’t want it. Take it back!”
“Funny how losses were as much of a currency as happiness in life. Somehow, they were noticed more, though.”
“The language of loss and the language of hope may, at times, come into conflict as we face end-of-life issues.”
“Yet, there are those moments when what we stand to lose is greater than the pain that threatens to take it.”
“I awoke that cold winter morning knowing she was gone as a fact. Butt I had no pictures, no memory, of any goodbye, indeed no pictures of her at all. Instead I recalled my mother in the secondhand, so that I was sure that she had been taken, in the same way that I was sure that there were lions in Africa, though I had never seen one.”
“The passion and pathos of living with your beloved are therefore incompatible with the security of an eternal life. The sense of something being unique and irreplaceable is inseparable from the sense that it can be lost. This relation to loss is inscribed in the very form of living on. To live on is never to repose in a timeless or endless presence. Rather, to live on is to remain after a past that has ceased to be and before an unpredictable future that may not come to be. (44)”
“The sharp smell of her was still in our room, on our bed, and I tried to follow that scent down the alleys of my mind, but while all the twists and turns that marked my short life were clear before me, my mother appeared only as fog and smoke. I tried to recall her face, and when it did not come, I thought of her arms, her hands, but there was only smoke, and when I searched to remember her corrections, her affections, I found only smoke. She d gone from that warm, quilt of memory to the cold library of fact.”
“Often the only difference between victory and defeat; success and failure; or love and loss might be the diligence with which we pursue something.”
“The price of a war that usually never occurs to those desiring one is that while indeed both sides might win, there is every reason to believe the consequences of any ultimate victory requires masses of the innocent losing.”
“: And in that moment I possessed and lost the whole world and everything in it and was left with the feeling and the knowledge, which is love, that no matter how we give ourselves we always end up losing. That to love is to lose, the moment we agree to the bargain. And that, being human, we keep standing there wanting to lose more.”
“War All it left were your broken pieces Mood swings, and limbs in pins Like kings, You suffer from depression And there’s no question It has left you with all this aggression.”
“The morning starts innocently and the night becomes damned to men who believe wasted time is torture, as they spend a fine and precious day living in the past.”