Grief Comes In Waves Quotes

Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.

Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of “waves.

That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this, as well as friends. Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said, was nowhere to be found. Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions), “It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it - books, bricks, grief - it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth? How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe also troubled - roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?

A Thirsty Fish I don't get tired of you. Don't grow weary of being compassionate toward me! All this thirst equipment must surely be tired of me, the waterjar, the water carrier. I have a thirsty fish in me that can never find enough of what it's thirsty for! Show me the way to the ocean! Break these half-measures, these small containers. All this fantasy and grief. Let my house be drowned in the wave that rose last night in the courtyard hidden in the center of my chest. Joseph fell like the moon into my well. The harvest I expected was washed away. But no matter. A fire has risen above my tombstone hat. I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music and this dawn and the warmth of your cheek against mine. The grief-armies assemble, but I'm not going with them. This is how it always is when I finish a poem. A great silence comes over me, and I wonder why I ever thought to use language.

Grief is weird. It seems to come in these waves out of nowhere. One minute I'm standing in the ocean, fine. The next minute I'm drowning.

[The waves] move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

Sometimes it's your fragrance that comes to me, out of the blue, on a crowded road in a Sunday afternoon. But more often, it's memories of us that cross my mind almost every lone evening. All I want is to lessen the pain I feel every night. But every morning I wake up is another day, hopeless and miserable, with nothing but a deafening silence, a wave of tears, memories and your absence.

It is important to remember that emotional pain comes in waves. Remind yourself that there will be a pause in between waves.

Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.

She'd not known grief would come in waves, brought on by the smallest of things. Nor had she realized that ordinary acts of living would continue even after the loss of a love and that it would remain possible to get caught up in the moment of a simple pleasure before remembering.

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!

She took a second look at him, at his fancy tailored suit. Dark gray with pinstripes. Oh please, like she’d really believe he was a dom at all? “Gabrielle Anderson. Are you sure you’re Master Marcus?” “Why would you think I’m not Master Marcus?” he asked. Well, good grief. She waved a hand at him and kept the duh from slipping out. Just in case he really was Master Marcus. Maybe he hadn’t changed yet or something. “The suit? Where are your leathers or latex or…biker jacket or vest? And black? Did you forget to wear black?” He stared for a second, as if she’d turned into a drooling idiot, and then simply roared. Deep, full laughter—amazing coming from someone who looked like he should have a stick up his ass.

healing comes in waves, and I'm allowed to feel every rise and every fall of my tide.

My grief comes in waves and is usually triggered by something arbitrary.

I accepted all this counsel politely, with a glassy smile and a glaring sense of unreality. Many adults seemed to interpret this numbness as a positive sign; I remember particularly Mr. Beeman (an overly clipped Brit in a dumb tweed motoring cap, whom despite his solicitude I had come to hate, irrationally, as an agent of my mother’s death) complimenting me on my maturity and informing me that I seemed to be “coping awfully well.” And maybe I was coping awfully well, I don’t know. Certainly I wasn’t howling aloud or punching my fist through windows or doing any of the things I imagined people might do who felt as I did. But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.

Gently the waves would break (Lily heard them in her sleep); tenderly the light fell (it seemed to come through her eyelids). And it all looked, Mr. Carmichael thought, shutting his book, falling asleep, much as it used to look years ago.

Grief is like an ocean. It comes in waves - some waves are bigger than others and you cannot prepare for it.

Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.

All Hallow’s Day: grief comes in waves. Now it threatens to capsize him.

Most of the time, I try not to think about it, but sometimes grief comes in waves. It laps against the sandy beach of your soul, again and again, soft and rushing and impossible to escape.

Life is hard. It’s cruel sometimes. It’s merciless and unfair, but we all go through difficult times, one way or another. You’ve had more than your share of knocks lately, I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t mean you get to quit. No one gets to quit. You keep fighting, every day, and sooner or later, the grief fades a little. You grow stronger, find joy again, and everything gets easier. You come out of it more equipped to handle the next wave, which will come eventually. There will always be waves.

No one gets to quit. You keep fighting, every day, and sooner or later, the grief fades a little. You grow stronger, find joy again, and everything gets easier. You come out of it more equipped to handle the next wave, which will come eventually. There will always be waves.

My father was dead, my mother was dead, I would need for a while to watch for mines, but I would still get up in the morning and send out the laundry. I would still plan a menu for Easter lunch. I would still remember to renew my passport. Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.

8. "For who would trust the seeming sighs Of wife or paramour? Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes We late saw streaming o'er. For pleasures past I do not grieve, Nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave No thing that claims a tear. 9. "And now I'm in the world alone, Upon the wide, wide sea: But why should I for others groan, When none will sigh for me? Perchance my dog will whine in vain, Till fed by stranger hands; But long ere I come back again, He'd tear me where he stands. 10. "With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go Athwart the foaming brine; Nor care what land thou bear'st me to, So not again to mine. Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves! And when you fail my sight, Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves! My native Land — Good Night!

Watching someone you love… die? There are no words for how broken that makes a person. It’s like waking up from a bad dream only to find out that it’s you reality, it’s like watching sunlight fade from the sky, like watching death suck the one you love dry, and being powerless to stop it. You may as well try to stop the waves from rolling in, or the sun from rising.In the end, the waves will roll, the sun will set, and death will come. The only thing you have a choice in? How you deal with it…when it does.

Grief doesn’t come in stages. Frankly, it would be easier if it did. It ebbs and flows like waves. Bad days always follow good days, but better days are never far behind.

Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness

Following a tragedy, grief comes in waves, each bigger than the previous, each carrying a new component of pain.

Grief comes in waves. Like the swells crashing against the rocks, it gathers force and breaks when you least expect it

Suppose after all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear. I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god. I will leave my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. But I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony. I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. – That he will not torture the forgiving. – Upon that rock I stand. – That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. Upon that rock I stand. The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come. Upon that rock I stand.

Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves....it obliterates the dailiness of life. .. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind.

Grief is less like a predictable sequence and more like an amorphous blob of uncertainty. You can’t forecast your way out of grief, because there’s no way to determine when the next wave is coming. This may seem disheartening at first, but when you recognize that there is no structure for grief, you can stop trying to pinpoint exactly where you are on your journey. If there’s no road map, it’s impossible to be lost.

This is how it is to come near you A wave of light builds in the black pupil of the eye. The old become young. The opening lines of the Qur'an open still more. Inside every human chest there is a hand, but it has nothing to write with. Love moves further in, where language turns to fresh cream on the tongue. Every accident, and the essence of every being, is a bud, a blanket tucked into a cradle, a closed mouth. All these buds will blossom, and in that moment you will know what your grief was, and how the seed you planted has been miraculously, and naturally, growing. Now silence. Let soul speak inside spoken things.

Never again the music blown as brightly Off of my heart as foam blown off a wave; Never again the melody that lightly Caressed my grief and healed the wounds it gave. Never again–I hear my dark thoughts clashing Sullen and blind as waves that beat a wall– Age that is coming, summer that is going, All I have lost or never found at all.

She felt a wave of despair coming toward her, ready to take her under. This had been happening on and off since she lost them. Casey had learned that the best thing to do was to brace herself for every rush of grief. She would let the sadness and sorrow wash over her, smother her. She held on tight, knowing all she could do was feel the pain until it passed.

Just like an ocean can be pounding the beach with waves yet be perfectly calm at its depths, our feelings may look destructive, or inappropriate, or negative, when really they are expressions of something incredibly hopeful coming from deep within us. So, on some days, an angry outburst might really be a wave of creative energy coursing through you. Fight for your rights! Or that tremor of grief could be the stirring of your most tender compassion. What looks like fear might actually be excitement.

Just like I know that the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, or whatever - don't come in a neat order. Sometimes they return over and over, like waves that alternate between pulling you under and spitting you back onto the shore" -Piper

At Night on the High Seas At night, when the sea cradles me And the pale star gleam Lies down on its broad waves, Then I free myself wholly From all activity and all the love And stand silent and breathe purely, Alone, alone cradled by the sea That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights. Then I have to think of my friends And my gaze sinks into their eyes, And I ask each one, silent and alone: "Are you still mine? Is my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death? Do you feel from my love, my grief, Just a breath, just an echo?" And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent, And smiles: NO And no greetings and no answers come from anywhere.

Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I loved well. Here is my proof that I paid the price. So I’ll just show up and sit quietly and practice not being God with her. I’m so sorry, I’ll say. Thank you for trusting me enough to invite me close. I see your pain and it’s real. I’m so sorry. The Journey of the Warrior. This is it. The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to surrender to. It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up. So I will sit with my pain by letting my own heart break. I will love others in pain by volunteering to let my heart break with theirs. I’ll be helpless and broken and still—surrendered to my powerlessness. Mutual surrender, maybe that’s an act of love. Surrendering to this thing that’s bigger than we are: this love, this pain. The courage to surrender comes from knowing that the love and pain will almost kill us, but not quite.

It had been many months since I'd shed tears for Tomaso, but grief is like that. It's not a continuous process; it comes in waves. You can keep it at bay for a time, like a dam holding back a lake, but them something triggers an explosion inside of you, shattering the wall and letting loose a flood.

Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there. What are you doing here? I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you. What do you want. I want you to stop. I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks. It's okay. I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held. It's okay. Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says. Okay. Okay. Okay. Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and fragility are exposed to the soft strength of her open arms and her simple word okay and I start to cry. I start to cry. I want to cry. It comes in waves. THe waves roll deep and from deep the deep within me and I hold her and she holds me tighter and i let her and I let it and I let this and I have not felt this way this vulnerability or allowed myself to feel this way this vulnerability since I was ten years old and I don't know why I haven't and I don't know why I am now and I only know that I am and that it is scary terrifying frightening worse and better than anything I've ever felt crying in her arms just crying in her ams just crying. She guides me to the ground, but she doesn't let me go. THe Gates are open and thirteen years of addiction, violence, hell and their accompaniments are manifesting themselves in dense tears and heavy sobs and a shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. THe loss inhabits, fills and overwhelms me. It is the loss of a childhood of being a Teeenager of normalcy of happiness of love of trust anon reason of God of Family of friends of future of potential of dignity of humanity of sanity f myself of everything everything everything. I lost everything and I am lost reduced to a mass of mourning, sadness, grief, anguish and heartache. I am lost. I have lost. Everything. Everything. It's wet and Lilly cradles me like a broken Child. My face and her shoulder and her shirt and her hair are wet with my tears. I slow down and I start to breathe slowly and deeply and her hair smells clean and I open my eyes because I want to see it an it is all that I can see. It is jet black almost blue and radiant with moisture. I want to touch it and I reach with one of my hands and I run my hand from the crown along her neck and her back to the base of her rib and it is a thin perfect sheer and I let it slowly drop from the tips of my fingers and when it is gone I miss it. I do it again and again and she lets me do it and she doesn't speak she just cradles me because I am broken. I am broken. Broken. THere is noise and voices and Lilly pulls me in tighter and tighter and I know I pull her in tighter and tighter and I can feel her heart beating and I know she can feel my heart beating and they are speaking our hearts are speaking a language wordless old unknowable and true and we're pulling and holding and the noise is closer and the voices louder and Lilly whispers. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.

People talk about grief coming and going like waves, but I am not a breakwater, I am not a boat, I am not a statue left on a rocky shore, tested for its endurance.

Sadness seems to come in waves. Big rolling waves. I have no choice but to ride them.

We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean's bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections. . . . Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.

To everyone in the foyer reading the lists, or on the sidewalks waving signs and photos of their families who’d disappeared, I said over and over again: “Everyone is dead.” If they insisted, showing me family photos, I’d calmly say: “Were there any children? Not a single child will come back.” I didn’t mince my words, I didn’t try to spare their feelings, I was used to death. I’d become as hard-hearted as the deportees who saw us arrive at Birkenau without saying a single comforting word. Surviving makes other people’s tears unbearable. You might drown in them.

It won’t be easy. Right now you’re in the middle of the kind of heartbreak that is bone deep. It will come in waves and you’ll want to drown in it. You’ll promise yourself you won’t cry, and then you’ll break that promise a million times. But someday it will change. Your heart will begin to see vibrant colors again. Because grief is not a place to stay, it’s a doorway to pass through.

I steer clear of telling. I can't come out with it. The outlandish truth of me. How can I reveal this to someone innocent and unsuspecting? With those who know my story I talk freely about us.... But with others I keep it hidden, the truth. I keep it under wraps because I don't want to shock or make anyone distressed. But it's not like me to be cagey in my interactions.... But now I try to keep a distance from those who are innocent of my reality. At best I am vague. I feel deceitful at times. But I can't just drop it on someone, I feel--it's too horrifying, too huge. It's not that I should be honest with everyone, the white lies I tell strangers I don't mind. But there are those I see time and again, have drinks with, share jokes, and even they don't know. They see my cheery side. And I kick myself for being a fraud.... I can see, though, that my secrecy does me no favors. It probably makes worse my sense of being outlandish. It confirms to me that it might be abhorrent, my story, or that few can relate to it.

Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day 'Tis since thou art fled away. How shall ever one like me Win thee back again? With the joyous and the free Thou wilt scoff at pain. Spirit false! thou hast forgot All but those who need thee not. As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf, Thou with sorrow art dismayed; Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee, that thou art not near, And reproach thou wilt not hear. Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure;-- Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. I love all that thou lovest, Spirit of Delight! The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed, And the starry night; Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born. I love snow and all the forms Of the radiant frost; I love waves, and winds, and storms, Everything almost Which is Nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery. I love tranquil solitude, And such society As is quiet, wise, and good; Between thee and me What difference? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less. I love Love--though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee-- Thou art love and life! O come! Make once more my heart thy home!

Phrases offered to the grief-stricken, such as “time heals all wounds” and “the day will come when you reach closure” irritated him, and there were times when he sat silent, seeming half-buried in some sediment of sorrow. “Closure? When someone beloved dies there is no ‘closure.’” He disliked television programs featuring tornado chasers squealing “Big one! Big one!” and despised the rat-infested warrens of the Internet, riddled with misinformation and chicanery. He did not like old foreign movies where, when people parted, one stood in the middle of the road and waved. He thought people with cell phones should be immolated along with those who overcooked pasta. Calendars, especially the scenic types with their glowing views of a world without telephone lines, rusting cars or burger stands, enraged him, but he despised the kittens, motorcycles, famous women and jazz musicians of the special-interest calendars as well. “Why not photographs of feral cats? Why not diseases?” he said furiously. Wal-Mart trucks on the highway received his curses and perfumed women in elevators invited his acid comment that they smelled of animal musk glands. For years he had been writing an essay entitled “This Land Is NOT Your Land.

The news filled me with such euphoria that for an instant I was numb. My ingrained self-censorship immediately started working: I registered the fact that there was an orgy of weeping going on around me, and that I had to come up with some suitable performance. There seemed nowhere to hide my lack of correct emotion except the shoulder of the woman in front of me, one of the student officials, who was apparently heartbroken. I swiftly buried my head in her shoulder and heaved appropriately. As so often in China, a bit of ritual did the trick. Sniveling heartily she made a movement as though she was going to turn around and embrace me I pressed my whole weight on her from behind to keep her in her place, hoping to give the impression that I was in a state of abandoned grief. In the days after Mao's death, I did a lot of thinking. I knew he was considered a philosopher, and I tried to think what his 'philosophy' really was. It seemed to me that its central principle was the need or the desire? for perpetual conflict. The core of his thinking seemed to be that human struggles were the motivating force of history and that in order to make history 'class enemies' had to be continuously created en masse. I wondered whether there were any other philosophers whose theories had led to the suffering and death of so many. I thought of the terror and misery to which the Chinese population had been subjected. For what? But Mao's theory might just be the extension of his personality. He was, it seemed to me, really a restless fight promoter by nature, and good at it. He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilize them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out many of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred. But how much individual responsibility ordinary people should share, I could not decide. The other hallmark of Maoism, it seemed to me, was the reign of ignorance. Because of his calculation that the cultured class were an easy target for a population that was largely illiterate, because of his own deep resentment of formal education and the educated, because of his megalomania, which led to his scorn for the great figures of Chinese culture, and because of his contempt for the areas of Chinese civilization that he did not understand, such as architecture, art, and music, Mao destroyed much of the country's cultural heritage. He left behind not only a brutalized nation, but also an ugly land with little of its past glory remaining or appreciated. The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings. Weeping for Mao was perhaps just another programmed act in their programmed lives. Yet the mood of the nation was unmistakably against continuing Mao's policies. Less than a month after his death, on 6 October, Mme Mao was arrested, along with the other members of the Gang of Four. They had no support from anyone not the army, not the police, not even their own guards. They had had only Mao. The Gang of Four had held power only because it was really a Gang of Five. When I heard about the ease with which the Four had been removed, I felt a wave of sadness. How could such a small group of second-rate tyrants ravage 900 million people for so long? But my main feeling was joy. The last tyrants of the Cultural Revolution were finally gone.

In our brief life, so many roads, so many miracles and blessings and glories, but also so many curses and denials, grief and contempt, continuous waves on the planetary seas that come and go, and they crawl us into the vast heavens, n that quiet rhythm universe listen to your heart beat.

You cannot go through your life without losing and grieving, and if you try to avoid it, that emotion will get stuck and be constantly waiting for you to feel it. My advice on unavoidable pain is the same as always: feel it and honor it. That’s how you process anything. Come back into the body to feel it, use the breathe-and-feel tool, and it will pass in time. It will come in waves. It will teach you how to be human. It’s not necessarily fun, but it’s so incredibly important. And paradoxically, feeling grief and pain will eventually allow you the space to process, and eventually be happy again.

They say for every death there’s a grieving process, but when you are put in that position, it’s the loneliest experience. It doesn’t matter how many people are around you, suffering like you are, you only feel your own pain. And the grief, it comes in waves, shattering you, breaking every part of you which is barely holding on.

She felt a wave of despair coming toward her, ready to take her under. This had been happening on and off since she lost them. Casey had learned that the best thing to do was to brace herself for every rush of grief. She would let the sadness and sorrow wash over her, smother her. She held on tight, knowing all she could do was feel the pain until it passed.

The world wept a silent, windless downpour, a befitting accompaniment to the arrival of death. However, Lady Brenna Hilliard, only daughter of the late Earl Lundsford, had yet to join in the weeping. Shock and disbelief kept her from the comfort of tears. The torrent would come, she knew, in a wave of sudden grief, but for now her emotions were elusive, too numb to be felt.

Her face appeared to have grown paler, and it seemed as if there were a mocking insanity flaring up almost imperceptibly on her lips and in the azure of her eyes there lurked the insanity of grief. She was silent, and she waited for what her father would say. And he spoke slowly, finding words almost with difficulty, 'Dearest, what did I hear? I did not expect this of you. Why did you do it?' The Beauty bowed her head and said softly and sadly, 'Father, sooner or later all this will come to pass anyway.' 'Sooner or later?' asked the father as if in surprise. And he continued, 'Better late than sooner.' 'I am all aflame,' said the Beauty softly. And the smile on her lips was like the reflection of some searing flame, and in her eyes there gleamed blue lightning, and her naked arms and shoulders were like some delicate vessel of alabaster, filled to the brim with a molten metal. Her firm breasts rose and fell impetuously, and two white waves strained forth from the tight confines of her dress, the delicate color of which was reminiscent of the yellowish rosiness of a peach. From beneath the folds of her short dress were visible against the dark green velvet of the rug and entwined by the pink ribbons of her gilded sandals her white and trembling legs. ("The Poison Garden")

The wave of pure outrage blindsided me. I shouldn't be here, I thought. This is utterly fucked up. I should have been sitting in a garden down the road, barefoot with a drink in my hand, swapping the day's work stories with Peter and Jamie. I had never thought about this before, and it almost knocked me over: all the things we should have had. We should have stayed up all night together studying and stressing out before exams, Peter and I should have argued over who got to bring Jamie to our first dance and slagged her about how she looked in her dress. We should have come weaving home together, singing and laughing and inconsiderate, after drunken college nights. We could have shared a flat, taken off Interrailing around Europe, gone arm-in-arm through dodgy fashion phases and low-rent gigs and high-drama love affairs. Two of us might have been married by now, given the other one a godchild. I had been robbed blind.

Memories appear in flashes of light, in short scenes, in reflections that can make us laugh or bring us to tears. They might come in on a sneaker wave of grief, or be buoyed up from our past by a certain fragrance in the air, or a sound from afar. The essence of memoir, I suppose, is that it could better be described as “re-memory.” We don’t just look back at an event in our past; we are remembering the memory of what happened. It’s a bit like putting the laundry through

Spring in War-Time" I feel the spring far off, far off, The faint, far scent of bud and leaf— Oh, how can spring take heart to come To a world in grief, Deep grief? The sun turns north, the days grow long, Later the evening star grows bright— How can the daylight linger on For men to fight, Still fight? The grass is waking in the ground, Soon it will rise and blow in waves— How can it have the heart to sway Over the graves, New graves? Under the boughs where lovers walked The apple-blooms will shed their breath— But what of all the lovers now Parted by Death, Grey Death?

The first discovery of the shipwreck is that we have a higher capacity for pain than we ever could have imagined before we lost, before we failed, before we suffered…The surprise on the other side of the shipwreck is that, while your capacity for pain improved far beyond our wildest reckoning, now you have a capacity to feel everything deeper. You are capable of a depth of empathy and compassion that would have been unthinkable before…And from this new-found capacity for pain, for sorrow, for torment, for agony, for endless waves of grief, comes the biggest surprise of them all—your new-found capacity for joy.

When thro' Earth's caverns I a-while have roul'd My waves, I rise, and here again behold The long-lost stars; and, as I late did glide Near Styx, Proserpina there I espy'd. Fear still with grief might in her face be seen; She still her rape laments; yet, made a queen, Beneath those gloomy shades her sceptre sways, And ev'n th' infernal king her will obeys. This heard, the Goddess like a statue stood, Stupid with grief; and in that musing mood Continu'd long; new cares a-while supprest The reigning of her immortal breast. At last to Jove her daughter's sire she flies, And with her chariot cuts the chrystal skies; She comes in clouds, and with dishevel'd hair, Standing before his throne, prefers her pray'r” (Ovid, Metamorphoses (Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al). „ქვესკნელში ვწვეთავ, მივიწყებულ ვარსკვლავთა შევცქერ. მიწისქვეშეთა სტიქსის მორევს როს მივდიოდი, ვიხილე შენი პროზერპინა ჩემი თვალებით. თუმცა იურვის, აქამომდე კრთომა აქვს სახეს, დედოფალია მაინც. დიდი, ბნელი სამეფოს უფლებამორჭმულ ცოლად უზის ქვესკნელის ტირანს. მეხდაცემული იყო დიდხანს, მაგრამ როს ურვამ განდევნა დიდი გონდაბინდვა, ამხედრდა ეტლზე, ეთერს აიჭრა და სახეზე ნისლმობურული იუპიტერის წინ წარმოდგა გაშლილი თმებით“ (პუბლიუს ოვიდიუს ნაზონი, მეტამორფოზები (ლათინურიდან თარგმნეს: ნ. მელაშვილმა, ნ. ტონიამ, ი. გარაყანიძემ), თბ., 1980, 143).

When the dead return they will come to you in dream and in waking, will be the bird knocking, knocking against glass, seeking a way in, will masquerade as the wind, its voice made audible by the tongues of leaves, greedily lapping, as the waves’ self-made fugue is a turning and returning, the dead will not then nor ever again desert you, their unrest will be the coat cloaking you, the farther you journey from them the more that distance will maw in you, time and place gulching when the dead return to demand accounting, wanting and wanting and wanting everything you have to give and nothing will quench or unhunger them as they take all you make as offering. Then tell you to begin again.

I always think of grief like an ocean," I say. "At first, the water is rougher than you knew possible. Tidal waves one after the other, no let-up, pulling you under. All you can do is drift and hope you’ll come up for air before it’s too late. Then, slowly . . . Eventually . . . There will be a gap long enough for you to take a lungful of oxygen before you’re pulled back under. This part lasts the longest, living for the brief moment you can breathe again. But over time the waves ease, the gap between them lengthens. And while you’re floating, you grow a little bit stronger. You know they’ll keep coming. It’s all the water knows. But you’re prepared. You know how to ride it out. That the lull will come again . . . sooner or later.

The Meaning of Birds Of the genesis of birds we know nothing, save the legend they are descended from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards that have somehow taken to air. Better the story that they were crab-apple blossoms or such, blown along by the wind; time after time finding themselves tossed from perhaps a seaside tree, floated or lifted over the thin blue lazarine waves until something in the snatch of color began to flutter and rise. But what does it matter anyway how they got up high in the trees or over the rusty shoulders of some mountain? There they are, little figments, animated---soaring. And if occasionally a tern washes up greased and stiff, and sometimes a cardinal or a mockingbird slams against the windshield and your soul goes oh God and shivers at the quick and unexpected end to beauty, it is not news that we live in a world where beauty is unexplainable and suddenly ruined and has its own routines. We are often far from home in a dark town, and our griefs are difficult to translate into a language understood by others. We sense the downswing of time and learn, having come of age, that the reluctant concessions made in youth are not sufficient to heat the cold drawn breath of age. Perhaps temperance was not enough, foresight or even wisdom fallacious, not only in conception but in the thin acts themselves. So our lives are difficult, and perhaps unpardonable, and the fey gauds of youth have, as the old men told us they would, faded. But still, it is morning again, this day. In the flowering trees the birds take up their indifferent, elegant cries. Look around. Perhaps it isn't too late to make a fool of yourself again. Perhaps it isn't too late to flap your arms and cry out, to give one more cracked rendition of your singular, aspirant song.

My child, deep-thundering Zeus controls the end of all that is, disposing as he wills. We who are mortals have no mind; we live like cattle, day to day, knowing nothing of god's plans to end each one of us. Yet we are fed by hope and faith to dream impossible plans. Some wait for a day to come, others watch the turning of years. No one among the mortals feels so broken as not to hope in coming time to fly home rich to splendid goods and lands. Yet before he makes his goal, odious old age lays hold of him first. Appalling disease consumes another. Some are killed in war where death carries them under the dark earth. Some drown and die under the myriad waves when a hurricane slams across the blue salt water cracking their cargo ship. Others rope a noose around their wretched necks and choose to die, abandoning the sun of day. A thousand black spirits waylay man with unending grief and suffering. If you listen to my counsel, you won't want the good things of life; not batter your heart by torturing your skull with cold remorse.

...the letters begin to cross vast spaces in slow sailing ships and everything becomes still more protracted and verbose, and there seems no end to the space and the leisure of those early nineteenth century days, and faiths are lost and the life of Hedley Vicars revives them; aunts catch cold but recover; cousins marry; there is the Irish famine and the Indian Mutiny, and both sisters remain, to their great, but silent grief, for in those days there were things that women hid like pearls in their breasts, without children to come after them. Louisa, dumped down in Ireland with Lord Waterford at the hunt all day, was often very lonely; but she stuck to her post, visited the poor, spoke words of comfort (‘I am sorry indeed to hear of Anthony Thompson's loss of mind, or rather of memory; if, however, he can understand sufficiently to trust solely in our Saviour, he has enough’) and sketched and sketched. Thousands of notebooks were filled with pen and ink drawings of an evening, and then the carpenter stretched sheets for her and she designed frescoes for schoolrooms, had live sheep into her bedroom, draped gamekeepers in blankets, painted Holy Families in abundance, until the great Watts exclaimed that here was Titian's peer and Raphael's master! At that Lady Waterford laughed (she had a generous, benignant sense of humour); and said that she was nothing but a sketcher; had scarcely had a lesson in her life—witness her angel's wings, scandalously unfinished. Moreover, there was her father's house for ever falling into the sea; she must shore it up; must entertain her friends; must fill her days with all sorts of charities, till her Lord came home from hunting, and then, at midnight often, she would sketch him with his knightly face half hidden in a bowl of soup, sitting with her notebook under a lamp beside him. Off he would ride again, stately as a crusader, to hunt the fox, and she would wave to him and think, each time, what if this should be the last? And so it was one morning. His horse stumbled. He was killed. She knew it before they told her, and never could Sir John Leslie forget, when he ran down-stairs the day they buried him, the beauty of the great lady standing by the window to see the hearse depart, nor, when he came back again, how the curtain, heavy, Mid-Victorian, plush perhaps, was all crushed together where she had grasped it in her agony.

Ione III. TO-DAY my skies are bare and ashen, And bend on me without a beam. Since love is held the master-passion, Its loss must be the pain supreme — And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream. But pardon, dear departed Guest, I will not rant, I will not rail; For good the grain must feel the flail; There are whom love has never blessed. I had and have a younger brother, One whom I loved and love to-day As never fond and doting mother Adored the babe who found its way From heavenly scenes into her day. Oh, he was full of youth's new wine, — A man on life's ascending slope, Flushed with ambition, full of hope; And every wish of his was mine. A kingly youth; the way before him Was thronged with victories to be won; so joyous, too, the heavens o'er him Were bright with an unchanging sun, — His days with rhyme were overrun. Toil had not taught him Nature's prose, Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes, And sorrow had not made him wise; His life was in the budding rose. I know not how I came to waken, Some instinct pricked my soul to sight; My heart by some vague thrill was shaken, — A thrill so true and yet so slight, I hardly deemed I read aright. As when a sleeper, ign'rant why, Not knowing what mysterious hand Has called him out of slumberland, Starts up to find some danger nigh. Love is a guest that comes, unbidden, But, having come, asserts his right; He will not be repressed nor hidden. And so my brother's dawning plight Became uncovered to my sight. Some sound-mote in his passing tone Caught in the meshes of my ear; Some little glance, a shade too dear, Betrayed the love he bore Ione. What could I do? He was my brother, And young, and full of hope and trust; I could not, dared not try to smother His flame, and turn his heart to dust. I knew how oft life gives a crust To starving men who cry for bread; But he was young, so few his days, He had not learned the great world's ways, Nor Disappointment's volumes read. However fair and rich the booty, I could not make his loss my gain. For love is dear, but dearer, duty, And here my way was clear and plain. I saw how I could save him pain. And so, with all my day grown dim, That this loved brother's sun might shine, I joined his suit, gave over mine, And sought Ione, to plead for him. I found her in an eastern bower, Where all day long the am'rous sun Lay by to woo a timid flower. This day his course was well-nigh run, But still with lingering art he spun Gold fancies on the shadowed wall. The vines waved soft and green above, And there where one might tell his love, I told my griefs — I told her all! I told her all, and as she hearkened, A tear-drop fell upon her dress. With grief her flushing brow was darkened; One sob that she could not repress Betrayed the depths of her distress. Upon her grief my sorrow fed, And I was bowed with unlived years, My heart swelled with a sea of tears, The tears my manhood could not shed. The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero, Disporting in the hour of doom. God made us men; times make the hero — But in that awful space of gloom I gave no thought but sorrow's room. All — all was dim within that bower, What time the sun divorced the day; And all the shadows, glooming gray, Proclaimed the sadness of the hour. She could not speak — no word was needed; Her look, half strength and half despair, Told me I had not vainly pleaded, That she would not ignore my prayer. And so she turned and left me there, And as she went, so passed my bliss; She loved me, I could not mistake — But for her own and my love's sake, Her womanhood could rise to this! My wounded heart fled swift to cover, And life at times seemed very drear. My brother proved an ardent lover — What had so young a man to fear? He wed Ione within the year. No shadow clouds her tranquil brow, Men speak her husband's name with pride, While she sits honored at his side —

April 12 MORNING “My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” — Psalm 22:14 OUR blessed Lord experienced a terrible sinking and melting of soul. “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?” Deep depression of spirit is the most grievous of all trials; all besides is as nothing. Well might the suffering Saviour cry to His God, “Be not far from me,” for above all other seasons a man needs his God when his heart is melted within him because of heaviness. Believer, come near the cross this morning, and humbly adore the King of glory as having once been brought far lower, in mental distress and inward anguish, than any one among us; and mark His fitness to become a faithful High Priest, who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Especially let those of us whose sadness springs directly from the withdrawal of a present sense of our Father’s love, enter into near and intimate communion with Jesus. Let us not give way to despair, since through this dark room the Master has passed before us. Our souls may sometimes long and faint, and thirst even to anguish, to behold the light of the Lord’s countenance: at such times let us stay ourselves with the sweet fact of the sympathy of our great High Priest. Our drops of sorrow may well be forgotten in the ocean of His griefs; but how high ought our love to rise! Come in, O strong and deep love of Jesus, like the sea at the flood in spring tides, cover all my powers, drown all my sins, wash out all my cares, lift up my earth-bound soul, and float it right up to my Lord’s feet, and there let me lie, a poor broken shell, washed up by His love, having no virtue or value; and only venturing to whisper to Him that if He will put His ear to me, He will hear within my heart faint echoes of the vast waves of His own love which have brought me where it is my delight to lie, even at His feet for ever.

They'd followed him up and had seen him open the door of a room not far from the head of the stairs. He hadn't so much as glanced their way but had gone in and shut the door. She'd walked on with Martha, past that door, down the corridor and around a corner to their chamber. Drawing in a tight-faintly excited-breath, she set out, quietly creeping back to the corner, her evening slippers allowing her to tiptoe along with barely a sound. Nearing the corner, she paused and glanced back along the corridor. Still empty. Reassured, she started to turn, intending to peek around the corner- A hard body swung around the corner and plowed into her. She stumbled back. Hard hands grabbed her, holding her upright. Her heart leapt to her throat. She looked up,saw only darkness. She opened her mouth- A palm slapped over her lips. A steely arm locked around her-locked her against a large, adamantine male body; she couldn't even squirm. Her senses scrambled. Strength, male heat, muscled hardness engulfed her. Then a virulent curse singed her ears. And she realized who'd captured her. Panic and sheer fright had tensed her every muscle; relief washed both away and she felt limp. The temptation to sag in his arms, to sink gratefully against him, was so nearly overwhelming that it shocked her into tensing again. He lowered his head so he could look into her face. Through clenched teeth, he hissed, "What the hell are you doing?" His tone very effectively dragged her wits to the fore. He hadn't removed his hand from her lips. She nipped it. With a muted oath, he pulled the hand away. She moistened her lips and angrily whispered back, "Coming to see you, of course. What are you doing here?" "Coming to fetch you-of course." "You ridiculous man." Her hands had come to rest on his chest. She snatched them back, waved them. "I'm hardly likely to come to grief over the space of a few yards!" Even to her ears they sounded like squabbling children. He didn't reply. Through the dark, he looked at her. She couldn't see his eyes, but his gaze was so intent, so intense that she could feel... her heart started thudding, beating heavier, deeper. Her senses expanded, alert in a wholly unfamiliar way. he looked at her...looked at her. Primitive instinct riffled the delicate hairs at her nape. Abruptly he raised his head, straightened, stepped back. "Come on." Grabbing her elbow, he bundled her unceremoniously around the corner and on up the corridor before him. Her temper-always close to the surface when he was near-started to simmer. If they hadn't needed to be quiet, she would have told him what she thought of such cavalier treatment. Breckenridge halted her outside the door to his bedchamber; he would have preferred any other meeting place, but there was no safer place, and regardless of all and everything else, he needed to keep her safe. Reaching around her, he raised the latch and set the door swinging. "In here." He'd left the lamp burning low. As he followed her in, then reached back and shut the door, he took in what she was wearing. He bit back another curse. She glanced around, but there was nowhere to sit but on the bed. Quickly he strode past her, stripped off the coverlet, then autocratically pointed at the sheet. "Sit there." With a narrow-eyed glare, she did, with the haughty grace of a reigning monarch. Immediately she'd sat, he flicked out the coverlet and swathed her in it. She cast him a faintly puzzled glance but obligingly held the enveloping drape close about her. He said nothing; if she wanted to think he was concerned about her catching a chill, so be it. At least the coverlet was long enough to screen her distracting angles and calves. Which really was ridiculous. Considering how many naked women he'd seen in his life, why the sight of her stockinged ankles and calves should so affect him was beyond his ability to explain.

An Ant in the Mouth of the Furnace Sorrow likes itself most when it’s At its best being A barrier Impenetrable. An obstacle. A veil that can’t be torn. When beyond its deckled edges sorrow won’t let you see. As if you were a blue blur on paper intended to be a child’s image of heaven. And it takes more bearing because more of it is always coming. And it takes up space where space has never been. Where there is no space. Where no space has ever been. And it will not move. And brings all else to a standstill. To no longer be in a state of grief is also a state. To encounter the respite it is Is to judge Sometimes one’s self Other times others. There must be a name somewhere For what’s not there For what doesn’t By its aggravating presence Begin to replicate what’s gone. Goat in the snow. My life’s work. Man overboard. Black & blue overcoat. Orange eyes. Bleeding wall. Ring-tailed neck riverbed blanket. It’s not As though After all Suits every blue circumstance As if — what’s that — — what comes after — After which is Is no other After afterall No after other All as if at Last all that That grieving It is over — So as to make room for another You are doing something With someone who isn’t here How many conversations With who isn’t Able to talk back Is one human allotted? Things were only Like they were Because we were Having them together. Having them without you Is another thing altogether Before when You once were Here we was A something never failing We could Be counted on We would Have always been What we were No wonder

I believe that when a loved one has dementia, you experience many layers of grief. The first wave of grief comes with the diagnosis. The realisation that the person who has supported you all your life, will no longer be able to do so, no matter how hard they try. Grief the first time they struggle to remember your name or your relationship to each other. Grief when you have to accept that you can no longer keep them at home. Grief as they lose the ability to communicate, as another piece of the jigsaw is lost. Grief every time they are afraid, agitated or confused. So much grief you don't think you can cope with anymore. And then the overwhelming tidal wave of grief when they pass, when you would give anything to go back to the first wave of grief.

After Hunter lowered her onto her fur pallet, which she was swiftly coming to regard as her prison, she clutched the buffalo robe around her and rolled onto her side. Make no grief behind you. She felt like an animal caught in a snare--awaiting the trapper and certain death. The sun burned through her closed eyelids, red and hot. Loretta heard Hunter walk a short distance away, heard him murmur something. His stallion nickered in response. She lifted her lashes and watched the Comanche go through the contents of a parfleche. He withdrew her ruffled drawers, the buckskin shirt he had worn to the farm yesterday morning, and a drawstring pouch. As he walked back to her, he pressed her bloomers to his nose and sniffed. He met her gaze as he drew the lavender-scented cloth away from his face. For the first time, he smiled a genuine smile. It warmed his expression so briefly that she might have believed she imagined it but for the twinkle that remained in his dark eyes as he knelt beside her. He dropped the clothing onto the fur and held up the pouch. “Bear fat for the burn. You will lie on your face.” Their gazes locked, laughter still shimmering in his. Seconds dragged by, measured by the wild thumping of her heart. He wanted to rub her down? Oh, God, what was she going to do? She clutched the fur more tightly. Hunter shrugged as if her defiance bothered him not at all and tossed down the pouch. “You are sure enough not smart, Blue Eyes. You will lie on your face,” he said softly. “Don’t fight the big fight. If my strong arm fails me, I will call my friends. And in the end, you will lie on your face.” Loretta imagined sixty warriors swooping down on her. As if he needed more of an advantage. Hatred and helpless rage made her tremble. Hunter watched her, his expression unreadable as he waited. She wanted to fly at him, scratching and biting. Instead she loosened her hold on the buffalo robe and rolled onto her stomach. As she pressed her face into the stench-ridden buffalo fur, tears streamed down her cheeks, pooling and tickling in the crevices at each side of her nose. She clamped her arms to her sides and lay rigid, expecting him to jerk back the robe. Shame swept over her in hot, rolling waves as she imagined all those horrible men looking at her. She felt the fur shift and braced herself. His greased palm touched her back and slid downward with such agonizing slowness that her skin shriveled and her buttocks quivered. So focused was she on his touch, on the shame of it, that several seconds passed before she realized he had slipped his arm beneath the fur, that no one, not even he, could see her.

We all have the same holes in our hearts Everything falls apart at the exact same time It all comes together perfectly for the next step But my fear is this prison that I keep locked below the main deck I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden And my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right But they’re heavy and I’m awkward, I'm always running out of fight So I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship Hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks But I am all made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam Lost and found like you and me, all scattered out on the seas So come on, let’s wash each other With tears of joy and tears of grief And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach Come on and sew us together We're just some tattered rags stained forever We only have what we remember

In the coming days, grief would crash over me like storm-tossed ocean waves. I grieved the loss of the young woman I had been. I grieved the loss of my carefree life. I feared that pain would now be my constant companion. I grieved the baby I lost, the one from my imagination who never existed. I grieved for what this sweet baby would never have—a normal life, a normal childhood. I grieved the end of our perfect story.

Grief is like the water. It comes in waves. Sometimes the waves will be small, other times they'll be so big they'll be overwhelming. But the only thing that you can do is learn how to swim.

This way of resurrection is scandalous. This hope seems like such a far reach. It did then for Mary and the disciples. It does now. But here’s what I will give witness to, on this night: God meets us in that hope. God is present there at the tomb, even before we can recognize this Risen One. It is a scandalous act to hope. And again and again, against all odds, God meets us there in the depths of darkness. God comes to us, under the crash of waves, calling our name. God hears our hope, pulling us from the waters and into new life.

Perhaps, rather, one mourns when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly for ever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps one should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance. There is losing, as we know, but there is also the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. One can try to choose it, but it may be that this experience of transformation deconstitutes choice at some level. I do not think, for instance, that one can invoke the Protestant ethic when it comes to loss. One cannot say, "Oh, I'll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I'll apply myself to the task, and I'll endeavor to achieve the resolution of grief that is before me." I think one is hit by waves, and that one starts out the day with an aim, a project, a plan, and finds oneself foiled. One finds oneself fallen. One is exhausted but does not know why. Something is larger than one's own deliberate plan, one's own project, one's own knowing and choosing.

My grief comes in waves and is usually triggered by something arbitrary. I can tell you with a straight face what it was like watching my mom’s hair fall out in the bathtub, or about the five weeks I spent sleeping in hospitals, but catch me at H Mart when some kid runs up double-fisting plastic sleeves of ppeongtwigi and I’ll just lose it.

grief comes in waves and patterns. It flows, ebbs, and returns, claiming its way through the chest, the heart, and the brain.

After we clean up, Mack gets interested in a different sort of activity, and I have no objection. So we fuck on the couch with my legs wrapped high around his back until I come twice, and then after he pulls out, I finish him in my mouth. It’s after that. After a good day and a good meal and good sex with a good man who feels like mine. It’s then. I’m hit with a deep wave of grief. Because he’s not mine. Not for real. I might want him now in a way I never have before, but he doesn’t want me anymore. Not for more than the next three weeks. The reality hurts so intensely I have to leave Mack in a sated sprawl on the couch with the excuse that I need to go to the bathroom. There, I sit on the toilet and cry into my hands, fighting to will myself back into composure. Mack can’t know. He can’t know how much this hurts, how bad I feel. He’s got such a soft heart and such a strong sense of responsibility, he might try to give me what I want even now, even if it’s not the best thing for him. And I can’t let him do that. He needs to be perfectly free in a way he’s never been before. Free to decide on the life he wants. And telling him the truth about these new feelings and desires would make him less free. I won’t do it. “Anna?” Mack is knocking on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?” “Yes!” I’m relieved I sound just slightly strained. “Why wouldn’t I be?” “I don’t know. Just picking up vibes. You upset about something?” “No, of course not! Sorry. Just have some… digestion issues. I’ll be out in a minute.

The imposter’s dead.” Adara froze as she heard the unfamiliar male voice through her prison’s door. “Are you sure?” her guard asked. “Aye. Lord Selwyn identified him himself. He was stabbed straight through his heart.” Adara felt her world shift at those words. Christian dead? Nay. It couldn’t be. The men outside laughed and began to celebrate. “Christian,” she breathed, her heart shattering in waves of bitter agony. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t. “Open the door. Lord Selwyn wishes to have the queen join him so that they can set a date for her new wedding.” Never! Adara struggled to breathe as she glanced about for a weapon. There was nothing. But when the door opened, her rage took hold of her. “Damn you!” she shouted, then commenced to throwing every object toward the soldiers who entered. She couldn’t see clearly through her tears. All she knew was that she wanted vengeance on all of them. How dare they kill her Christian! How dare they! Sobs assailed her. She wanted to crumple from the excruciating weight of her grief. But she refused. So instead, she vented by pelting them with everything she could lift and launch. “Adara, cease!” She froze at the sound of a voice she hadn’t expected to hear. For a moment she thought she might be dreaming, until she blinked to look up into the most handsome face she’d ever known. She stared at the same blue eyes that made the tenderest of love to her. Christian. Her grip went lax and the candlestick in her hand fell to the floor. He was alive! She threw herself into his arms and held him close as giddy tears replaced her grief-induced ones. At least until her rage took hold again. “Damn you, you worthless, heartless son of a dog!” she snarled, pulling back to strike at his chest. “How dare you make me think you were dead! Don’t you ever do such a thing to me again.” Christian was stunned by her language and actions. “I didn’t know you could hear us through the door.” She struck him again on his armor, a blow that no doubt he felt not at all, but it gave her some degree of satisfaction. “Well, think better next time.” Her untoward anger amused him. Wiping the tears from her face, he kissed her tenderly. Phantom cleared his throat. “Need I remind the two of you that we still need to get out of this place before the guards regain consciousness?” “We are coming,” Christian said, pulling back from her and taking her hand into his. Two men brought the guards into her room and dumped them by her bed before they tied them securely. “How did you know where to find me?” she asked them. “Phantom has many unsavory friends who know every machination of Selwyn’s.” For some reason she didn’t doubt that.

Who's that?" Playing an old game, Roy pointed at Juanita. Serena grinned and raced to plant a kiss on Juanita's cheek. "'Nita!" she cried triumphantly. Juanita pointed her toward Lily. "Quien es?" "Mama and baby!" Serena climbed into Lily's lap for a hug. As Cade bent his large form beneath the flap to join them, Lily pointed in his direction. "What's his name?" "Papa-padre-daddy," she crowed, laughing as Cade lifted her and sat down with her in his lap. She liked having several names for everything and everyone, and could chatter incessantly in two languages. Cade pointed at an unshaven Travis who glared blearily at their laughter as he untangled himself from his damp bedroll. "Que esta?" Unaware of the Spanish niceties as to being addressed as a "what" instead of "who," Travis glared at their cheerfulness until Serena flung herself at him and hugged his neck. "Snake-oil man!" she cried. Laughter erupted all around—despite the dreary rain, despite their fear and weariness. Welcome waves of amusement relieved some of the tension. Travis growled and tickled Serena until she ran to Roy for help, then grinning, he met Cade's eyes. "Can't you teach her something else to call me?" "Tio Travis?" Cade suggested. "Tio, tio!" Serena cried, sticking her tongue out at Travis and hiding behind Roy's back. "Why do I get the feeling that means 'snake oil' in Spanish?" Travis muttered, reaching for the tin cup of coffee Juanita offered him. "It means 'uncle.' Whether you know it or not, you've just adopted a niece. That means you get to carry her today." Cade took his cup and settled back cross-legged beside Lily. "I don't think I'm ready for the responsibilities of a family man. I'm not even certain how I got into this." Travis threw Lily a wry look. "You're more trouble than you're worth, you know." "Look who's talking." Undisturbed, Lily called Serena to come eat her breakfast. She had spent eight years raising Travis's son. It was time he took on a little responsibility. Travis shrugged his shoulders, unabashed. "You could have had a smart, good-looking man like myself and you chose that man-mountain over there. You lost your chance, Lily." Lily didn't need to reply to that. She merely looked at his rumpled curls and beard-stubbled face and grinned. Relieved that she could still find humor in the midst of her grief, Cade finished his food and leaned over to kiss her before rising to finish packing the horses. Lily watched him go with astonishment. Cade never made public displays of affection. Their

She can say she's not sad, but I'm familiar with how grief works. I know it comes in waves. I know you can feel fine about something one day and it can fucking cripple you the next. The anger always comes.

It just comes and goes in waves, the grief of losing him. Rears its head at funny times, in peculiar places.

The wind howled and moaned pitifully. The rain beat ever louder against the old boat, and the waves outside hissed, whilst we, lying still in a close embrace, shivered still from the cold. This was indeed stern reality. I felt convinced that no dream, however monstrous, however unbearable, could ever have vied in oppressiveness with this crushing actuality. Natasha continued to talk softly, soothingly, kindly, as none but a woman can do. Her simple gentle words caused warm feelings to creep into my heart, and I felt it melting within me. A flood of tears poured down my cheeks, washing away the anger, the grief, the self-conceit, the evil that had accumulated in my heart in the course of that terrible night. Once more Natasha endeavoured to comfort me. “Do, not weep like that dear. Do stop crying. Please God, something will turn up. You will find another place. You will be all right soon”. Kisses, hot, caressing, and soothing mingled with her words. They were the very first kisses I had ever received from a woman; and they were the best. All those I received later were bought at much too high a price. “Come, come! Stop that noise; what a strange fellow you are. Tomorrow I will try and find you some work, if that’s what’s the matter.” The low, soft, persuasive whispers came wafted to me as though through a dream. Thus we remained in each other’s arms till daybreak. As soon as dawn appeared we crawled out from under the boat, and made our way towards the town. There we bid each other a warm farewell, and parted - never to meet, again; though for more than six months I searched for that sweet girl through all the slums of the town—the girl with whom I had spent an autumn night. If she is dead—the best thing that could have happened to her—may her soul rest in peace. If she is still alive, God grant her a quiet mind, and may she never realise her fall; for that would be only a cruel and futile suffering, and would serve no useful purpose in this world.

Grief comes in waves. There’s no timeline for it. It takes a long time, and sometimes healing just happens, like on an ordinary Saturday. You just laugh, cry a little, and exhale, because you are finally a little more at peace with it.

Grief. It doesn’t go away entirely. Some days, you think you’ve forgotten that you’ve lost someone important, and other days, it’s all you can think about. It comes and goes, like a wave. If you’re loved, and if you love, grief is a thing you’ll experience eventually. It means you’re human, Callie

She was learning that grief was like that; it had phases but it wasn’t linear. It wasn’t as if one moved seamlessly from shock to anger to desolation and eventually to acceptance. No, it was something different. At first, it was all-consuming, an almost unbearable pain, a physical and emotional heartache. But then she’d feel lonely and bereft, and then she would forget and laugh and smile. But a smell, a word, a book, a sound – anything could trigger it, the ice wave of realisation. It was real; he was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

The old cliché, “There are no words,” is regarded by many as an empty platitude, but I beg to differ. Well-meaning people use the expression over and over because it’s true. We don’t have the language to describe the grief that comes in waves, swallows us up, and keeps us on our knees. There is no road map through grief: it takes time, patience, and love for the soul to heal and reemerge. A deep faith in God and the belief that, as promised, we will indeed see our loved ones again in heaven has kept many people anchored until such time as they can right the ship and find the joy in living again.

The words have forasken us but we continue to write because the brave souls of Gaza continue to bleed. It is as if we are part of an endless funeral procession. The grief comes in waves, it ebbs and flows but mostly it crashes onto our hearts with great force and leaves us breathless. Helpless.

We are taught that love is not so different from hatred, that instead of opposites, the two extremes of the human heart might in fact be twins. But it's grief, really, that is love's twin, that knows no bounds of time or space. Wave after wave it keeps coming, whereas hatred cools, fades. So many times I swore that I loved Jude, that no one had ever loved or been loved this way before, and then something broke through, a new depth. Colder and darker moved the waters of my love. Thinking, in those first few days after, of something [my mother] once sad: There is no end to grief, because there is no end to love.

And then, in the split second that it took for a single person amongst the billions who populate this planet to make one tiny error in judgment, everything changed. The easy passage of time I’d once enjoyed was stripped from my life only to be replaced by a grating existence where each moment was so acutely raw that it demanded to be consciously and agonizingly experienced. I’m honestly not sure how I got through those first days of darkness, which, at the time, seemed to stretch endlessly into a cruel future I no longer recognized. There are those who say that time heals all wounds, but I’ve pretty much decided that isn’t really true. Wounds that dig into your soul and change you forever never really heal. They scab over and cease to ache every moment of every day, but every now and again, an unrelenting itch reminds you of their presence, and with that awareness comes a wave of grief that momentarily pushes you into the darkness once again. In a way, I supposed that I’ve learned to live with that darkness. I can’t speak to the experience of others who’ve suffered loss, but for me, the passage of time has allowed for the presence of more ordinary moments in my life, and with an increase of ordinary moments, life has mostly returned to normal. Of course, the word normal is a tricky one. I imagine each individual must define it in their own way, but for me, normal is a state in which the moments of my life count down silently and uninterrupted, until the next unordinary event affects their flow, sending me careening toward the darkness once again.

I don't think, for instance, that you can invoke a Protestant ethic when it comes to loss. You can't say, "Oh, I'll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I'll apply myself to the aks, and I'll endeavor to achieve the resolution of grief that is before me." I think that one is hit by waves, and that one starts out the day with an aim, a project, a plan, and one finds oneself foiled.

No one can prepare us for people leaving early. Grief will come in waves but the waves will subside and the sun will still rise.

Truth be told, I can’t really tell what she’s feeling right now. She can say she’s not sad, but I’m familiar with how grief works. I know it comes in waves. I know you can feel fine about something one day and it can fucking cripple you the next. The anger always comes.

Grieving is the process of emotionally navigating a loss. Navigating the loss of a dream is where grief can come as a surprise. It’s possible to grieve something you never had. This is what so many people grieving the loss of a loved one are experiencing. The loss of a loved one’s presence is devastating, but grief returns in waves as time brings reminders of things that should have happened for that one who is gone. A parent who loses a child also loses the opportunity to visit colleges with that child. A wife who loses her husband loses the partner who was supposed to be there to help make daunting decisions. And that’s what is important to understand about grief: There are stages, and walking through those stages isn’t only important, it’s necessary. And unfortunately, unavoidable. Prince Harry of England was interviewed in 2017 on Bryony Gordon’s Mad World podcast. He shared that at the age of twenty-eight he finally faced his grief over his mother’s death, sixteen years after she’d been gone. For years he thought he could avoid grief, but he couldn’t. He had to walk through it. There isn’t any way to get around grief. There’s only walking through, and even then it’s not about coming out on the other side unscathed. It’s about coming out a changed person. The stages of grief are real. Knowing what the phases are doesn’t prevent hurt, and getting through them doesn’t mean you forget. But understanding that the phases are legitimate and identifying your own stage in the process can help you feel a little less crazy. A lot of my own clutter is directly linked to denial. I have to fight against living in denial. If something is unpleasant or stressful, I’ll purposely deny it. Ignore it. If I think an e-mail is going to say something I don’t want to hear, I put off opening it. But

DON’T EAT THE SEEDS Allison had told Brady not to eat the seeds of the orange... but did he listen to her? No. "I'm telling you, Brady." She told him as he crunched and swallowed the seeds down with the rest of the juicy inside of the orange fruits, "You keep eating the seeds, and one day an orange tree will grow out of you." "As if!" Brady said back with a harsh laugh. Allison looked at him warily... she did not want to see that boy turn into a tree. The two of them were only ten, Allison new to the street. The other kids heeded her warning, Brady was just being stupid. "Where do you think that orange you're eating came from, Brady?" Allison told him as he gobbled down another slice. "From a foolish kid just like you who is now a tree." "No!" Brady yelled back defiantly and Judy only rolled her eyes, giving up. It wasn't until that night that Brady heard a rumble in his stomach. He ran to the bathroom to puke but all that shot out of his mouth was leaves. "HUH?!" He coughed, baffled. He was turning into a tree! He needed Allison's help. He ran out of his house to Allison's down the street... feeling branches shooting from his fingers and causing him agonising grief. As he ran towards Allison's house, he saw her just swinging on a tire on a tree in the front. Smiling to herself in the night. "Allison!" He beckoned. She blinked up, grinning at him as he fell before her and begged. "You were right! You were r-right! Help me! I don't want to be a tree!" "It's your own fault..." Allison just told him straight out. He looked at her astonished at that reply. She got off the wheel and waved for him to follow as she continued. "But I know how to fix it. Follow me." He ran after her, coughing out leaves the whole time till he saw the orange tree in the back where he had snuck an orange one time. He saw a dug up pit and he found it so hard as he felt roots coming out of his toes. "Over here." Allison said, waving him to the pit and he ran over. Suddenly she pushed him into the hole and he looked at her shocked, zap running down his cheeks in replacement of tears. "Why'd you do that?!" "Bad little children deserve a grave like yours." He looked at her in horror but it was too late. The roots from his toes suddenly clawed out of his shoes and dug into the ground. He felt his body tear apart as the tree shot out into the air and spread its leaves and fruit. Allison grinned, picking up a stick from the ground. She waved it around her and in a second turned back into her adult form. A witch. The next day her in her ten year old disguise, called the children of the street over to taste the new fruit of the tree she had in her backyard. As the kids broke open the oranges, they saw it was red inside and urked at the sight. "It's blood!" they screamed and she reassured them. "No. Just blood oranges. A kind of fruit. Try it and see." They tasted it warily, but loved the taste and grinned with red juice all over their teeth. "Mmm! Delicious!" Blood oranges. Now you know the truth.

Yeah, Bug. It’s only been a few months since Jules died. And I know you’re doing better, but grief is like the ocean. Sometimes it’s just lapping quietly at your toes and ankles while you walk along, but other times, a huge wave will come out of nowhere and pull you under.