Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Dominic Smith

Quote by Dominic Smith

“What other half-buried things did I know about my own grief and wife that, if asked about directly, I could surrender? That for several years I kept Clare’s mobile phone active because I didn’t want anyone else to take her phone number. That during the time before I released the number, I sent her texts from work, only to come home and read them on the phone that was always charging by her side of the bed.”

Quote by Dominic Smith

Book:Return to Valetto
Create image

Work

Return to Valetto

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Dominic Smith

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Dominic Smith. more

You May Also Like

“My father's death, it's- it's the reason I can't stand fires.' His hand stilled, then resumed. 'Why?' 'The logs...' She shuddered. 'They crack. It sounds like breaking bone.' 'Like your father's neck.' 'Yes,' she breathed. 'That's what I hear. I don't know how I'll ever not hear his neck snapping when I'm near a fire. It's... it's torture.' He continued to stroke her head. A wave of words pushed themselves out of her. 'I should have found a way to save us before then. Save Elain and Feyre when we were poor. But I was so angry, and I wanted him to try, to fight for us, but he didn't, and I would have let us all starve to prove what a wretch he was. It consumed me so much that... that I let Feyre go into that forest and told myself I didn't care, that she was half-wild, and it didn't matter, and yet...' She let out a wrenching cry. 'I close my eyes and I see her that day she went out to hunt the first time. I see Elain going into the Cauldron. I see her takin by it during the war. I see my father dead. And now I will see Feyre's face when I told her that the baby would kill her.' She shook and shook, her tears burning hot down her cheeks. Cassian kept stroking her hair, her back, as he held her by the lake. 'I hate it,' she said. 'Every part of me that... does these things. And yet I can't stop it. I can't let down this barrier, because to let it fall, to let everything in...' This was what would happen. This shrieking mess she'd become. 'I can't bear to be in my head. I can't bear to hear and see everything, over and over. That is all I hear- the snapping of his neck. His last words to me. That he loved me.' She whispered, 'I didn't deserve that love. I deserve nothing.' Cassian's hands tightened on her, her own hands falling away as she buried her face against his jacket and wept into his chest.”

GriefGuiltTraumaSarah J MaasCassianNesta ArcheronHeartbreakingNestaA Court Of Silver FlamesBreak Down
Book:A ​Court of Silver Flames
Create image

“Over my many years with animals I have been part of a lot of death and each time I feel honored to be able to be allowed to participate in such a momentous event as the departure of a soul from his earthly lifetime. The books I have read on human death and dying celebrate the approach and moment of death as one of the most sacred moments we experience. What a privilege to share such a time with someone you care about. Animals show us their wisdom in this way. As their bodies become weaker the creatures seem more and more peaceful; I have always felt the spirit was more present though the body was used up.”

LoveDeathNatureGriefBirdMourningPetWild
Book:Sanctuary - Exploring the Magical World of Birds
Create image

“They all know the chant except her. She tries to follow along but her signs are halting. Still, the people on either side of her smile at her. The silence in the room is overwhelming, broken as it is by nothing but the involuntary sounds of the deaf and the rustling of the sleeves of the signing people. The girl is about to start to cry when she hears around her a muted chuckling sound. Who’s laughing, she thinks furiously, only to realize that the sound was the sniffling of other people already weeping. At the realization, she is hard-put to suppress giggles instead. She thinks: maybe all ritual has mystery and absurdity, and maybe that is what it is for. It is a curious and complex thought and like most of her legacy from the madwoman it makes her head hurt. She concentrates then on her signing.”

LoveHopeLanguageLossGriefSecretMysterySlaveryDeaf
Book:Black Wine
Create image

“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comers in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you're at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you've forgotten. It haunts you until it becomes a part of you, shading you breath for breath.”

GriefGrief And Loss
Book:Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
Create image

“Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn't there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”

GriefHealing
Book:Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
Create image

“But what if the great secret insider-trading truth is that you don't ever get over the biggest losses in your life? Is that good news, bad news, or both? The good news is that if you don't seal up your heart with caulking compound, and instead stay permeable, people stay alive inside you, and maybe outside you, too, forever. This is also the bad news, not because your heart will continue to hurt forever, but because grief is so frowned upon, so hard for even intimate bystanders to witness, that you will think you must be crazy for not getting over it. You think it's best to keep this a secret, even if it cuts you off from certain aspects of life, like, say, the truth of your heart, and all that is real. The pain does grow less acute, but the insidious palace lie that we will get over crushing losses means that our emotional GPS can never find true north, as it is based on maps that no longer mention the most important places we have been to.”

LossGriefRealism
Book:Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
Create image

“Years after her death, I started thinking mean things about myself, and that holding on to her shirt was pure neurotic clinging. That it was ridiculous. Part of me understood that my hold on it had to do with the excruciating mess and weirdness of my family: how only a handful of people in your lifetime help redeem this mess, so that when one of them dies, hope dies. You never fully recover. You can't.”

UnderstandingFriendshipGrief
Book:Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
Create image

“I'd given talks for years about how when it comes to grieving, the culture lies--you really do not get over the biggest losses, you don't pass through grief in any organized way, and it takes years and infinitely more tears than people want to allot you. Yet the gift of grief is incalculable, in giving you back to yourself.”

CultureGrief
Book:Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
Create image