When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try to understand them, and, I think, to try to remember them. Meghan O'Rourke More Quotes by Meghan O'Rourke More Quotes From Meghan O'Rourke I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the first days would be the worst and then it would get steadily better - like getting over the flu. That's not how it was. Meghan O'Rourke flu sadness grief I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone. Meghan O'Rourke eye mother spring One word I had throughout the first year and a half of my mother's death was 'unmoored.' I felt that I had no anchor, that I had no home in the world. Meghan O'Rourke mother home years A mother is the portal by which you enter the world. Meghan O'Rourke portal mother world Grief is a bad moon, a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant, a saboteur who, at the slightest change in the sunlight, or at the first notes of a jingle for a dog food commercial, will flick the memory switch, bringing tears to your eyes. Meghan O'Rourke grief dog memories All love stories are tales of beginnings. When we talk about falling in love, we go to the beginning, to pinpoint the moment of freefall. Meghan O'Rourke falling-in-love love-story stories Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back. Meghan O'Rourke one-day stories desire I think that grief is a profound spiritual, metaphysical, and - oddly - physical reckoning with death, which we don't understand well. It's both the process by which you relearn the world in the absence of someone who was a pillar in it, and the process in which you confront the reality of death. Meghan O'Rourke grief spiritual reality A mother is a story with no beginning. That is what defines her. Meghan O'Rourke mother stories I live to collect information, and I am also a perfectionist. Meghan O'Rourke perfectionist information Our minds are mysterious; our conscious brain is like a ship on a sea that is obscure to us. Meghan O'Rourke sea mind brain Funerals cost so much money, and are likely to be an additional source of stress in this recession - it's sad that we don't have a more humane, less commercialized way to approach burial. Meghan O'Rourke funeral cost stress The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head. Meghan O'Rourke mother world needs It's all too easy when talking about female gymnasts to fall into the trap of infantilizing them, spending more time worrying more about female vulnerability than we do celebrating female strength. Meghan O'Rourke worry talking fall I am the indoctrinated child of two lapsed Irish Catholics. Which is to say: I am not religious. Meghan O'Rourke religious two children Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc. Meghan O'Rourke loss way thinking Writing has always been the primary way I make sense of the world. Meghan O'Rourke writing way world What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport. Meghan O'Rourke gymnastics sports thinking Faith does help mourners survive their loss, some studies suggest; but I imagine one still struggles. Meghan O'Rourke struggle doe loss A death from a long illness is very different from a sudden death. It gives you time to say goodbye and time to adjust to the idea that the beloved will not be with you anymore. Meghan O'Rourke goodbye giving ideas
