In the first year of my grief, there were times when I felt like hiding my personal story of loss and other times when I wanted to wear a sign on my body that read "Be nice to me, I'm grieving," or "Don't tick me off; I've already got the world on my...
In the country, I stopped being a person who, in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, . I grew calmer, but beneath that calm was a deep well of loneliness I hadn't known was there. ... Anxiety was my fuel. When I stopped, it was all waiting for me: fear, a...
Hannah expected this to make her sob even more, but instead she found her tears drying up and her tummy growing warm. How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls? She understood now why her parents go so angry when they saw the result of bom...
We Lesbian Avengers have built this shrine. It stands for our fear. It stands for our grief. It stands for our rage. And it enshrines our intention to live fully and completely as who we are, wherever we are. We take the fire of action into our heart...
Sarah, though, was still sometimes ruled by stark pain, lost to everything else. Grief slipped away, only to attack from behind. It changed shape endlessly. It lacerated her, numbed her, stalked her, startled her, caught her by the throat. It deceive...
Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief ...
I began praying for the health and safety of my boys before each one was born. Once a week for two years prior to Joseph’s death, I also gathered with other moms to pray for my sons and their schools, and I specifically asked God to protect the hea...
I have written this book with the conviction that the response to injury does not have to be vengeance and that we need to distinguish between revenge and justice. A response other than revenge is possible and desirable. For that to happen, however, ...
When a group of people are forced to navigate a minefield together, everyone feels a grudging sense of comfort when someone else gets blown up. Though there may be other unseen landmines left in the ground, each death creates a safe spot. A landmine ...
A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. 'There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot kno...
We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly o...
I struggled with how I could begin to communicate across the immense chasm that my husband’s affair had put between myself and this man that, only months ago, had been the person I would have said I was closest to and knew better that anyone else i...
Is this a negative perspective? The stance of a victim? No, It is a statement of truth. The way it is for a woman who refuses to be cast aside without protest. Who has the courage to bare her face and her heart to the reality of her partner’s infid...
Sarah shifted on the bench. I worried she was winding up to say something, that Sky would start humming now, that the fright spring-coiled inside me would break loose. Then I remembered the widow dress I was wearing. I made a sound with my lips like ...
The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow. Happiness lives where sorrow is not. When sorrow arrives, happiness dies. It can't stand pain. Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all gr...
She couldn’t read his expression. As he started toward her, she recalled the way he’d seemed to glide through the sand the first time she’d ever seen him; she remembered their kiss on the boat dock the night of his sister’s wedding. And she h...
Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The wea...
Partially undermining the manufacturer's ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful contribution to mankind was the frivolous way in which it went about marketing its products. Grief was the only rational response to the news that an em...
They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief...
She had not had the relief of amnesia. She had suffered longer, and she had suffered more. Each second was agony in the first weeks. She was like an amputee in the days before anesthesia, half crazed with pain, astounded that the human body could fee...
There's some ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have That hon...
