Rob Tourtelot
But getting older is hard. It is a gift, yes, but it is also heavy. Just as the doors of possibility become fewer and farther between, the burden of grief gets bigger. As the years pass, our losses in life accumulate, threatening to weigh us down. It takes active effort—breaths, walks, conversations with friends, rest—to slow down and remember tha
... See morefrom Is This It? This is It. by Katie Hawkins Gaar
- We suffer as human beings, but out of that can come enormous joys, and genuine happiness, too. It can run in tandem with this ordinary sense of suffering. Otherwise, joy doesn’t resonate fully. Joy seems to leap forth out of suffering. Regardless of your loss, you see how beautiful, how meaningful, how joyful the world can suddenly be. Human beings... See more
from Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life by Amanda Petrusich
- You’re right that profound grief quickly pushes you away from both certitude and indifference, which are unproductive feelings—
That’s right. Certitude and indifference. They’re the problems with this world.from Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life by Amanda Petrusich
We’re all hurtling through our lives and the planet is hurtling through space without a seat belt. We have to discover successively more freedom inside the terrible things that have happened and terrible things that certainly will happen, and the whole of it is also a mysterious splendor, full of kindness, welcome and cups of tea.
from John Tarrant : Articles by John Tarrant
- Yet the fundamental loss remains—it doesn’t just dissipate—and, in a strange way, I think it can become a magnet for other losses. We come to see we are all simply creatures carrying around our ever-deepening loss. Small griefs seem to collect around the bigger primary grief. I think this realization allows us to become a true human being.
from Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life by Amanda Petrusich
- Thus our strange relationship with the pain of grief. In the early days, we wish only for it to end; later on, we fear that it will. And when it finally does begin to ease, it also does not, because, at first, feeling better can feel like loss, too.
from Losing Love, Finding Love, and Living with the Fragility of It All by Maria Popova
So we stumbled through our loving, difficult readings and tiny speeches; then the button was pushed, and as the coffin advanced solemnly into the furnace, dysfunctional squawks came like a shower of arrows out of the sound system. The tape kept trying to play and its clicks and grindings were amplified very efficiently into the overhead speakers. T
... See morefrom Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life by John Tarrant
- After the death of a loved one, the incoming messages seem scrambled for a while. At times, closeness with our deceased loved one feels incredibly visceral, as though they are present in the room, here and now. At other times, the string seems to have fallen off the board — not shorter or longer than it was before, but simply stolen from us entirel... See more
from Your Brain on Grief, Your Heart on Healing by Maria Popova
