3,968 Quotes About Grief

Recovery from the death of a loved one rarely looks like grand gestures and soaring moments of triumph. In fact, living well after loss more often looks like gradually giving ourselves and the people around us just a little more compassion, just a little more permission, and just a little more love every single day. Healing doesn’t need to be grand to be worthwhile; it’s the littlest moments that make the biggest difference.

In order to get “good” at grief, you have to practice grieving over and over again. This does not mean being constantly sad, but actively engaging with grief each time it appears, instead of avoiding it or pushing it away. It can be frustrating at first, because most of us are not explicitly taught how to grieve, but gradually, we can learn to remain upright in the face of our grief and become “good” at dealing with it.

Grief literally changes and rearranges the cells of our bodies. Our brains rewire, our nerves fire us up and settle us down, and our immune systems do everything they can to protect us from stress. When our loved one dies, our bodies feel it—from the immediate impact to the lasting effects. Grief leaves a visible and invisible impression on our lives, in our lungs, in our brains, and in our hearts. Everyone who has ever grieved is, at least partially, made up of grief.

This profound sense of loss is as devastating as the urgent feeling that focus on the future is necessary. The two feelings, loss and hope, hit us simultaneously.

To feel that way about a person; to search until you can search no more, until even the place that should be searched is gone; to go from the frantic madness of possibility and panic to the futility of knowing, deep down, that the chances of finding that person had dwindled away to a shred of a half-chance in a million; to finally sink into dumb acceptance that there was now an ever-changing, unforgiving wall of water between you and that beloved person...

I'm happy, so happy to be a tiny fleck of a thing alongside you. We may just be moments, June, but to love a handful of people very well, that's a good life. I was just a blip, a spark, the blink of God's eyes. Because of you, it was more than enough. It was everything.

I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died. She was unconscious all the time, and it did not take her very long to die.

Grief is the parachute of love, that never really got the chance to embrace the view.

But his grief, the gaping hole left after my mother died- it's too close to my own. Seeing his grief, year after year, it only magnifies my own. My Mother was the glue that held us all together. Now, with her missing, there are only people in pain, unable to heal each other.