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Mourning Quotes

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Mourning Quotes

“Keeping promises to the dead, or to anyone else, is very well. But I begin to see that 'respect for the wishes of the dead' is a trap. Yesterday I stopped myself only in time from saying about some trifle 'H. wouldn't have liked that.' This is unfair to the others. I should soon be using 'what H. would have liked' as an instrument of domestic tyranny; with her supposed likings becoming a thinner and thinner disguise for my own.”

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Book:A Grief Observed
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“Thinking of her father, she realized how greatly she had leant on that man of deep kindness, how sure she had felt of his constant protection, how much she had taken that protection for granted. And so together with her constant grieving, with the ache for his presence that never left her, came the knowledge of what real loneliness felt like. She would marvel, remembering how often in his lifetime she had thought herself lonely, when by stretching out a finger she could touch him, when by speaking she could hear his voice, when by raising her eyes she could see him before her. And now also she knew the desolation of small things, the power to give infinite pain that lies hidden in the little inanimate objects that persist, in a book, in a well-worn garment, in a half-finished letter, in a favourite armchair. She thought: 'They go on—they mean nothing at all, and yet they go on,' and the handling of them was anguish, and yet she must always touch them. 'How queer, this old arm-chair has out-lived him, an old chair—' And feeling the creases in its leather, the dent in its back where her father's head had lain, she would hate the inanimate thing for surviving, or perhaps she would love it and find herself weeping.”

DeathLossGriefMourningFathersMaterial ThingsPossessionsDeath Of A Father
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“At the Meet she was a prey to her self-conscious shyness, so that she fancied people were whispering. There was no one now with bowed, patient shoulders to stand between her and those unfriendly people. Colonel Antrim came up. 'Glad to see you out, Stephen.' But his voice sounded stiff because he was embarrassed—everyone felt just a little embarrassed, as people will do in the face of bereavement.”

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Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“She thought how curious it was that responses such as this--emotions, even--could run parallel with but quite separate from unhappiness. I am unhappy all the time, she thought, and that is a total occupation, but some other part of me still goes on working. I still see that things are beautiful, or significant, and that prompts a feeling. I can be angry, or pleased. But all this with detachment, as though it happened to someone else. It is as though half of me were some stranger, living independently.”

FeelingsGriefEmotionsMourningEmptinessUnhappinessBereavementDetachment
Book:Perfect Happiness
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“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.”

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Book:Perfect Happiness
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“She wondered why happiness should be so acutely remembered when sorrow vanishes, like pain. Those brilliant tethered moments are seldom black. I was often miserable--but some kindly (or perverse) mechanism of the memory fades out all that, leaving quite other things, and hence an untruthful whole. We quarrelled, but all I have now of those quarrels is a pungent taste, not words nor phrases but a flavour: his silent back, my churning resentment.”

RelationshipsMemoriesLossGriefSorrowMourningQuarrelsBereavementMarriages
Book:Perfect Happiness
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“Ruth Bowers laid her hand, as she spoke, on Frances's arm and the physical contact was like a burn, distracting her totally. Two days after Steven's death she had lain in bed and thought, I shall never again feel someone else's arms round me, another person's body close up against mine, not sex, not nakedness, just physical closeness, often, casually, with another human being. And now the touch of others--Zoe's quick hugs, Tabitha's dutiful brushing of the cheek--had this disproportionate effect. To be touched was both a sacrilege and a joy.”

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Book:Perfect Happiness
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“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.”

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Book:Sanctuary - Exploring the Magical World of Birds
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“Grief is a river you wade in until you get to the other side. But I am here, stuck in the middle, water parting around my ankles, moving downstream over the flat rocks. I'm not able to lift a foot, move on. Instead, I'm going to stay here in the shallows with my sorrow, nurture it like a cranky baby, rock it in my arms. I don't want it to grow up, go to school, get married. It's mine. Yes, the October sunlight wraps me in its yellow shawl, and the air is sweet as a golden Tokay. On the other side, there are apples, grapes, walnuts, and the rocks are warm from the sun. But I'm going to stand here, growing colder, until every inch of my skin is numb. I can't cross over. Then you really will be gone.”

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Book:Gold
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“Anders knew he would soon lose his father, and that impending loss seemed more concrete now, more real, not like air but like a door or a wall, something you could bang against, bang into, and of course children know they will lose their parents, they know it from early on, but most are able to believe that that particular present will not come, that it is years away....”

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Book:The Last White Man
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“To heal in grief is to integrate your grief into your self and to learn to continue your changed life with fullness and meaning. Experiencing a new and changed ’wholeness’ requires that you engage in the work of mourning. Healing doesn’t just happen. And, contrary to what we sometimes believe, time alone does not heal all wounds. Mourning, which requires a time of convalescence…a very slow, gradual return to health after an injury, heals all wounds. Healing is a holistic concept that embraces the physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual realms. Note that healing is not the same as curing, which is a medical term that means ’remedying’ or ’correcting.’ You cannot remedy your grief, but you can reconcile it. You cannot correct your grief, but you can heal it.”

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Author:Alan D. Wolfelt, The Depression of Grief: Coping with Your Sadness and Knowing When to Get Help
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“We need to take yet another step in reconsidering mourning: resurrecting and redefining, rather than discarding, the significance of detaching from the dead. Paradoxically, detachment is an integral part of the mature posthumous bond as an adult maintains with a parent. It helps us uncover the essence of the relationship beyond the noise of interaction. I believe that what we disconnect from if we are lucky and effective mourners, is not the relationship with deceased parents per se but rather the way we were embedded in that relationship when they were alive. This new stance permits us to reinterpret the past and expands our understanding of what our parents were in relation to them, enhancing recognition, compassion, and sympathy for all concerned. This type of detachment radically changed my life, and the lives of the people I interviewed, for the better. When we finally see with adult eyes, we can recover as well as discover our parents’ hidden strengths and discard their newly obvious weaknesses. Detachment, the perspective it affords, and the growth it makes possible, is the greatest death benefit of all, and the prerequisite for all the rest. 62 Acting responsibly may not be glamorous, but it matters in the end. 194 Your Prescription for Collecting Death Benefits Four Practices to Cultivate Death Benefits Motivate Anticipate Meditate Activate (includes the Three Steps below) Three Steps to Reap Death Benefits Construct a narrative of your parent’s history Conduct a Psychological Inventory of your parent’s character (Includes the Four Questions below) Seek experiences and relationships to create necessary changes Four Questions for Conducting Your Psychological Inventory What did you get from your parent that you want to keep? What did your parent have that you regret not getting? What did you get from your parent that you want to discard? What did you need that your parent couldn’t provide? 215”

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Book:Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult's Life--For the Better
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“We need to take yet another step in reconsidering mourning: resurrecting and redefining, rather than discarding, the significance of detaching from the dead. Paradoxically, detachment is an integral part of the mature posthumous bond as an adult maintains with a parent. It helps us uncover the essence of the relationship beyond the noise of interaction. I believe that what we disconnect from if we are lucky and effective mourners, is not the relationship with deceased parents per se but rather the way we were embedded in that relationship when they were alive. This new stance permits us to reinterpret the past and expands our understanding of what our parents were in relation to them, enhancing recognition, compassion, and sympathy for all concerned. This type of detachment radically changed my life, and the lives of the people I interviewed, for the better. When we finally see with adult eyes, we can recover as well as discover our parents’ hidden strengths and discard their newly obvious weaknesses. Detachment, the perspective it affords, and the growth it makes possible, is the greatest death benefit of all, and the prerequisite for all the rest. 62 Acting responsibly may not be glamorous, but it matters in the end. 194 Your Prescription for Collecting Death Benefits Four Practices to Cultivate Death Benefits 1. Motivate 2. Anticipate 3. Meditate 4. Activate (includes the Three Steps below) Three Steps to Reap Death Benefits 1. Construct a narrative of your parent’s history 2. Conduct a Psychological Inventory of your parent’s character (Includes the Four Questions below) 3. Seek experiences and relationships to create necessary changes Four Questions for Conducting Your Psychological Inventory 1. What did you get from your parent that you want to keep? 2. What did your parent have that you regret not getting? 3. What did you get from your parent that you want to discard? 4. What did you need that your parent couldn’t provide? 215”

DeathGriefParentsMourning
Book:Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult's Life--For the Better
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“Andrei rested on a bench directly in front of a grave that belonged to: 'A father, hard worker, and beloved friend.' He leaned back, resting in the cemetery, and with each second, his desire to know more about this man 'Yeah, he’s a father, hard worker, and beloved friend. Weren’t we all at some point? What’s his kink? The worst thing he’s done to a person? The greatest thing he’s good at?' he thought. That’s what Andrei wanted to know. Not titles the man himself would disapprove of. What good was a proper impression in a cemetery filled with thousands of proper impressions? One must be indecent. So Andrei closed his eyes and imagined the father who worked hard and was a beloved friend. Maybe his kink was that he needed to do it in public—in the restroom after a date or at church during mass. Maybe the worst thing he had ever done was work so hard for his family that he never once saw them. Maybe the best thing he was good at was giving gifts to his friends. Yes, that’s it. He never gave money or handed them gift cards, but instead gave his brothers exactly what filled them the most. One year, he gave a notebook to his buddy John with the same line written over and over in painful cursive. The line said: 'Happy Birthday, you get thirteen hours of my life' and repeated until you could see the traces of hand cramps squiggling for life on the forty-second page. 'What a good man,' imagined Andrei. 'Hell of a mate.”

DeathGriefSocietyMourningFatherhoodMemorialMissing SomeoneBurialObituaryLosing Someone
Book:A Happy Ghost
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“I guess what I mean is that only Charlie could have stopped Bierman from ganging up on us, and only Charlie could have taken you on a road trip, and only Charlie could have made the Gophers think I was some kind of prize at 3d base even though I secretly stink, and only Charlie could have gotten Rachel to love you back. And he did all these things because he wanted to. So think about the happy times and when you start to cry anyway it's because you should. Charlie earned it.”

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Book:Last Days of Summer
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“But the mourning period also has a clear end. From that point on, the loss isn't a separate dimension of life—the loss is integrated into life. If we stay in a state of perpetual mourning, we are choosing a victim's mentality, believing I’m never going to get over it. If we stay stuck in mourning, it is as though our lives are over too. Renée's mourning, though it was painful, had also become a kind of shield, something that fenced her off from her present life. In the rituals of her loss she could protect herself from having to accept it.”

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Book:The Choice: Embrace the Possible
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“Something I learned very quickly was that grieving was complicated by lack of certainty, that the hope inherent in a missing loved one was also a species of curse. People posted about children who had gone missing upwards of fifteen years ago and whose faces were now impossible to conjure, about friends who had messaged to confirm a meeting place and then simply never showed up. In almost every case, the sense of loss was convoluted by an ache of possibility, by the almost-but-not-quite-negligible hope of reprieve. Deus ex machina – the missing loved one thrown back down to earth. Grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost far more than we cry for the person – but more than that, we cry because it helps. The grief process is also the coping process and if the grief is frozen by ambiguity, by the constant possibility of reversal, then so is the ability to cope.”

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Book:Our Wives Under the Sea
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“In humans as well, it is because your loved one existed that certain neurons fire together and certain proteins are folded in your brain in particular ways. It is because your loved one lived, and because you loved each other, that means when the person is no longer in the outer world, they still physically exist—in the wiring of the neurons of your brain.”

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Book:The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss
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