3,968 Quotes About Grief

My recent loss was too fresh, too sharp. I couldn’t cut myself on the edges of it. Not again. Not right now.

So this is what it’s like when someone you love dies, I thought. Like constantly trying to swallow a sharp stone.

In London her grief was retracted into sudden realisations of her loss. She had thought that sorrow would be her companion for many years and had planned for its entertainment. Now it visited her like sudden snow-storms, a hastening darkness across the sky, a transient whiteness and rigour cast upon her. She tried to recover the sentiment of renunciation which she had worn like a veil. It was gone, and gone with it was her sense of the dignity of bereavement.

Whenever something scary happens or I want to comment on something, like Joyce and Hopper’s constant bickering, which is getting annoying, I glance toward Adam’s side of the couch. And each and every time I do, the pain of his absence pierces my chest. That’s the thing about losing someone: there’s one major death followed by a million little deaths.

To bring such doubts, such challenges, such a "fight" to God is not a sign of lack of faith but a sign that we take that relationship with God seriously enough not to be afraid to contend. Things are off kilter, but through all of this, the hope and the promise we have is that when the shock diminishes we will find that God is with us as God has always been, loving us and holding us.

Grief is not a linear slide into darkness. It is a cyclical path that eventually rotates into light. Spring comes after the cold, harsh winter. Yes, there are seasons when grief is louder and more disruptive, but there are also seasons when grief backs off, your strength returns, and night turns into morning.

She knew it would feel terrible to remember, too, but sometimes good and terrible could coexist, right?

We’re taught that getting to a place of acceptance means having no more grief and holding no more negative feelings about the death of our loved one. In reality, acceptance is simply acknowledging that what happened did in fact happen and recognizing the bitter truth that death is permanent and irreversible. Acceptance isn’t relief; it is the wholehearted realization that your loss happened and that grief is sticking around for the long haul.

Judgment is the death of trust, vulnerability, and openness. When others judge us in our grief, they consciously or unconsciously signal to us that they are not safe places for us to share everything we’re thinking and feeling. It’s natural in the aftermath of loss, as in life in general, to gravitate toward people who are nonjudgmental and receptive. We all need witnesses to our stories, especially when we lose someone we love.