I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.
Interpretation
Loss transforms us, shaping our character and making us more compassionate.
This quote speaks to the enduring impact of loss on individuals. It suggests that rather than completely recovering from significant losses, we integrate them into our lives, allowing these experiences to shape us into more empathetic and gentle versions of ourselves. The idea is that through the process of grieving and absorbing our losses, we evolve into beings marked by a deeper understanding and kindness.
In practice
Sharing the quote during a support group for those grieving.
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.
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.
Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year: The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again.
I will die Before My Time. Because I feel the shadow's Depth. So much I wanted to accomplish. before I reached my Death
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
You don't know why God has put that person in your path. It's not a coincidence. He's strategically lined up every person, every detail and every step of your life. Now do your part--don't miss an opportunity to do good for others.
You will walk differently alone, dear, through a thicker atmosphere, forcing your way through the shadows of chairs, through the dripping smoke of the funnels. You will feel your own reflection sliding along the eyes of those who look at you. You are no longer insulated; but I suppose you must touch life in order to spring from it.
Funerals...are for the living.
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