“I am afraid of the run-up to death, because I have had to watch that. But I think that many of us who are on the last lap are too busy with the baggage of old age to waste much time anticipating the finishing line. We have to get used to being the person we are, the person we have always been, but encumbered now with various indignities and disabilities, shoved as it were into some new incarnation. We feel much the same, but clearly are not. We have entered an unexpected dimension; dealing with this is the new challenge.” DeathChallengesDyingAgingOld AgeDisabilityIndignities Book:Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time Source: Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time
“Don't think about it. However it was it is over now. However it was or whereever it was. He is not lying there any more. He is nowhere now. Nowhere at all. Don't think about it.” DeathLossGriefDyingMemory Book:Moon Tiger Source: Moon Tiger
“She was obsessed, isolated, locked within herself, in feverish pursuit. She knew that something disastrous was happening to her, that possibly she was going mad, and she knew also that if she ceased for one moment to think about Steven, to carry him with her in her head, she might lose him. He was dead; he only existed in recollection; when recollection ceased even that tenuous existence would be gone. A name, no more. Like the host of names on the white tombstones of Bunhill Fields burial ground; the silent army beneath the soil.” DeathMemoriesLossGriefMemoryMourningRemembranceBereavementRecollections Book:Perfect Happiness Source: Perfect Happiness
“Frances, sitting with hands folded and face blank, recollecting not in tranquility but in ripe howling grief her husband Steven dead now eight months two weeks one day.” DeathLossGriefMourningSpousesDeath Of A Spouse Book:Perfect Happiness Source: Perfect Happiness
“Frances, finding that useful mechanical smile, hugging Tabitha with one arm, looked at this dumpy man with pointed beard and noticeable brown eyes and saw in his expression the flicker of awkwardness that she generated now all around her. The bereaved are faintly leprous.” DeathLossGriefMourningBereavementAwkwardness Book:Perfect Happiness Source: Perfect Happiness
“It is as though I were adrift, untethered. I don't think of her much, no more than I ever did, but something terrible is going on. At moments all is well, and then at others I think that I am flying apart.” LifeDeathChangeGriefMourning Book:Passing On Source: Passing On