the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace. by Gail Caldwell

the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace.

Gail Caldwell

Image Embed Code

Categorized in : Grief Territory Commonplace

I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.

recovery different loss

Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

dog sight years

Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation. by Gail Caldwell

Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.

amputation endure heart

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

feeling-sad assuming sadness

What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is t... by Gail Caldwell

What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is the simple part.

missing-someone grief simple

memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.

pain grief memories

The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course. Until Caroline had died I had belonged to that other world, the place of innocence, and linear expectations, where I thught grief was a simple, wrenching realm of sadness and longing that graduallu receded. What that definition left out was the body blow that loss inflicts, as well as the temporary madness, and a range of less straightforward emotions shocking in their intensity.

sadness grief loss

What do you do when the story changes in midlife? When a tale you have told yourself turns out to be a little untrue, just enough to throw the world off-kilter? It’s like leaving the train at the wrong stop: You are still you, but in a new place, there by accident or grace, and you will need your wits about you to proceed.

leaving grace needs

Hope in the beginning feels like such a violation of the loss, and yet without it we couldn't survive.

violation loss feels

The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get... by Gail Caldwell

The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get through it.

Near the end I asked him one night in the hospital corridor what he thought was happening, and he said, "Tell her everything you haven't said," and I smiled with relief. "There's nothing," I said. "I've already told her everything.

relief ends night

It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, aand epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part-- time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection.

distance taken heart

the mother's first job is to raise a daughter strong enough to ou... by Gail Caldwell

the mother's first job is to raise a daughter strong enough to outlast her.

daughter strong mother

It's and old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.

That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.

irreplaceable bittersweet loyalty

The Hours is in fact a lovely triumph. Cunningham honors both Mrs. Dalloway and its creator with unerring sensitivity, thanks to his modesty of intention and his sovereignly affecting prose.... With his elliptical evocation of Mrs. Dalloway, he has managed to pay great but quiet tribute -- reminding us of the gorgeous, ferocious beauty of what endures.

lovely triumph honor

You can’t change the tale so that you turned left one day instead of right, or didn’t make the mistake that might have saved your life a day later. We don’t get those choices. The story is what got you here, and embracing its truth is what makes the outcome bearable.

one-day choices mistake

Grief is what tells you who you are alone. by Gail Caldwell

Grief is what tells you who you are alone.

who-you-are grief

My idea of a productive day, as both a child and an adult, was reading for hours and staring out the window.

reading children ideas

Scratch a fantasy and you'll find a nightmare. by Gail Caldwell

Scratch a fantasy and you'll find a nightmare.

nightmare scratches fantasy