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Quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language. Why are my sides so sore and achy? It’s from crying, I’m told. I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but itsphysicality is: my tongue unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth; on my chest, a heavy, awful weight; and inside my body, a sensation of eternal dissolving. My heart - my actual physical heart, nothing figurative here - is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhytms at odds with mine. This is an affliction not merely of the spirit but of the body, of aches and lagging strength. Flesh, muscles, organs are all compromised. No physical position is comfortable. For weeks, my stomach is in turmoil, tense and tight with foreboding, the ever-present certainty that somebody else will die, that more will be lost. One morning, Okey calls me a little earlier than usual and I think, Just tell me, tell me immediately, who has died now. Is it Mummy?”

Quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Work

Notes on Grief

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Author

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a renowned Nigerian author whose works delve into the intricacies of African life and identity. Born on September 15, 1977, she has garnered international recognition for her novels and short stories. more

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“However, the poignant truth that eventually reveals itself is that the remarkable individual you met at a crucial juncture of life, the one who set your heart ablaze, was no different from any other stranger you might have encountered on a bustling railway platform. He too, was waiting for a train, but a train that followed a different track. It would be unfair to expect him to forsake his journey to accompany you, just as it would be unwise for you to halt your journey in pursuit of him. Let him go his way, gracefully.”