Top Ten Tuesday - Bookish Quotes on Grief and Loss

Today’s Topic: Book Quotes that Fit X Theme (Pick any theme you want, i.e., motivational quotes, romantic dialogues, hunger-inducing quotes, quotes that fill you with hope, quotes on defeating adversity, quotes that present strong emotions, healing, etc. and then select quotes from books that fit that theme.)

Hosted by: That Artsy Reader Girl

Last year, someone very near and dear to me passed away. It really hit me hard. Thanks to that loss, I now notice fictional statements on grief and loss whereas in the past, I kind of skimmed over them. It wasn’t something I really related to. Now I do. And I hope that this experience and the ability to relate to fictional character’s journeys of grief are making me a more understanding and compassionate person.

“Grief isn’t always a loss of any one person or thing. I think it’s the loss of who we might have become had life not taken an unexpected turn. That needs some time to work out.”

I’d compared love to a battle, but I’d learned now that grief was an ambush, lying in wait to attack when least expected.

Loneliness was not silent—it was loud and painful, like a whirring noise that crept up on you and wouldn’t leave you alone.

She also knew that if life was indeed a process of loss, then she had been gifted at the beginning with simply much more to lose: a precious family heritage, and the tremendous comforts of wealth.

To realize that just because I had been hurt in the past didn’t mean I was too fragile to risk hurt again. That it was worth it to feel deeply and fall deeply and lose myself in possibility.

Grief was like a shipwreck, surrounding you with a chaos of debris on unrelenting waves. Sometimes shards hit you square on, inflicting fresh pain as you worked tirelessly to tread water. Other times, bits floated by as a reminder of the beautiful vessel that once was. Eventually, the wreckage would settle in its resting place on the calm, dark ocean floor. It became unseen, but never forgotten and never really gone.

“That’s the thing about loss, dear. Those of us left on this side of heaven must redefine ourselves. It’s the only hope we have of continuing to live in the here and now.” She reached out and patted Cora’s knee. “Otherwise, we end up doing something that only resembles living, in a version of the past that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“All I know is, God is not absent in our pain. Nor is He indifferent to our questions.”

She’d seen it time and time again. Men needed to feel the rush of pain as a sacrifice to their survival while their mates lay buried in the mud. Survivor’s guilt.

“Trauma never disappears, Genevieve. The things we’ve experienced are always a part of us. When we’re stressed, old traumas like to rear their heads.”

“Some memorials . . . they’re living and breathing ones. People, walking around, carrying that other person with them until the day they die.”

“The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.”

“I don’t cry either; I can’t. I cared for Lucy, cared for Abigail, but grief is draining. I am hoarding my strength and my stamina for life, and I will not spend it on death.”

You can miss your family so much you have to look down to see your chest rise and fall, to confirm that it hasn’t been cut open and you’re not bleeding out and you’re still breathing.