loss

Journeying through grief is one of the most "normal human" experiences you can have. Nevertheless, all too frequently the heartbroken seem to feel alienated by society. Unfortunately in our culture, we are taught to hold our feelings in. If someone asks us, "How are you doing today?" the expected answer is, "I'm okay." But what if you aren't okay? You obviously don't want to go into a monologue of why you're not okay, but sometimes you feel as if you're going to explode if you can't "tell off" that well-meaning person for even daring to ask you such a thing in the first place!

Christmas is such a time of struggle anyway, crammed with busy and hurry and the expectation that you will be joyful, no matter what. Then, if you__e like me, when you just sit quietly, just be, and let yourself feel what you feel, the guilt creeps in. Because you__e alive and the world is big, and you should be feeling some freakin_ Christmas spirit.

It is true that the grief journey is very lonely, but it is also up to you to decide just how lonely you will make it.

Sometimes when I wake up, I forget that she's gone and then I remember and my heart drops like it does when you miss a step or trip over a kerb.

Once you have walked down the grief path, what you have gained on your journey may turn into invaluable advice for someone else.

What is dying?I am standing on the seashore.A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.She is an object and I stand watching herTill at last she fades from the horizon,And someone at my side says, __he is gone!_ Gone where?Gone from my sight, that is all;She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;And just at the moment when someone at my side says, __he is gone_,There are others who are watching her coming,And other voices take up a glad shout,__here she comes_ _ and that is dying.

I wasn't offering her pity," Mrs. Caswell said impatiently. "Tragedies don't interest me, tragedies and heartbreaks are all alike, what matters is how a person meets them, how they survive them. Given the inevitability of losses and disappointments in life, that's where the challenge is and the uniqueness. I was offering her sympathy.

There cannot be love without loss, just like there cannot be happiness without sadness, or light without dark.

It began with the Christmas tree lights. They were candy-bright, mouth-size. She wanted to feel the lightness of them on her tongue, the spark on her tastebuds. Without him life was so dark, and all the holiday debris only made it worse. She promised herself she wouldn't bite down.

Delphine began to read with a mad attention when she wanted to talk to Clarisse. She saw that in her life there was a woman-shaped hole, a cutout that led to a mysterious place. Through it, her mother, then Eva, and now Clarisse had walked. If only she could plunge her arms through and drag them back.

No. Not a death wish. Just very little left to lose.

I can never gain something without losing everything I had before.

Remember to view yourself and your humanness with a kind heart.

It is okay to release your feelings when you feel the waves coming. It's all part of the process of having to let go of your relationship with your loved one as you once knew it. And remember, letting go is not the same thing as forgetting!

You are still thinking like a child, talking about friendship and crap. You__l regret it when you see one of them die in front of you.

Only those willing to truly risk everything will gain everything. No person ever rose to greatness without the willingness to lose it all.

You lost your innocence when you grew up, all right, everyone knew that, but did you have to lose your hope, as well?

There is something about loss and pain that opens the doors of wisdom in your heart, doors that would have remained locked for a whole lifetime.