A very good friend of mine lost her brother last week. They say to truly know a man, look at those he loves and who love him - if you knew those people like I do, you'd know he couldn't have been anything other than a wonderful, kind, & generous person. And that he was. My heart aches for my friend and her family, as well as for him - knowing his life at the end was so dark, he couldn't find any hope, or any other way out.
This Wednesday's Words & Quippish Quotes is dedicated to John, to his family & friends, and to all the lost souls out there - I hope you can read these words and know you are not alone, and there is always a way out of the darkness.
Please support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in any way you can.
Visit www.afsp.org to learn more & to help.
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on Earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP
“Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
“Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska
"...in the sea of grief, there were moments of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost." - Kristin Hannah, Night Road
“I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.”― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never loses. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body
"I'll be seeing you;In every lovely, Summer's day;
And everything that's bright and gay;
I'll always think of you that way;
I'll find you in the morning sun;
And when the night is new;
I'll be looking at the moon;
But I'll be seeing you."
-Irving Kahal "I'll Be Seeing You"
“to love life, to love it evenwhen you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weighs you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you - again.”
― Ellen Bass
"Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad."
- Christina Rosetti, Remember
"Those of us who knew him best talk about him often...Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice, but still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend." - Stephen King, Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption.
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