“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.”

— Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

In the days that followed I thought about grief; how nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories but until you experience it for yourself you can’t possibly understand. There’s no going around it. Or under or over it. You’ve got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so enormous that you are smacked against the shore. It will permeate the very fabric of your life, so that everything you do is stained by it; every moment, good or bad, is steeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments, the achievements and successes, are tinged with the knowledge that someone or something is missing. And the first time that you smile or laugh, you catch yourself, because happiness feels so unfamiliar.

Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

It is a curse of a grieving heart that it never stops mourning. It clings onto grief as its last refuge, as its final act of defiance. It stands singing in the wake of its own destruction, refusing to move on.

But this isn't tragic, you know? Grief isn't sad, it isn't something to move out on; grief is the acknowledgement of love, it is an acknowledgement of life, and of the truth that follows. It is a promise of rememberance. "You were here, you were loved, and even though my heart aches from the weight of the hole you left, I'll remember you, in every moment of happiness, in every fickle realization of content, in every dream, in every prayer, in every act of kindness, in every breath, in every twinkle of every star, in every little whisper of wind, in every sob of nostalgia, in every turn of time, in every way of existence... I will carry you on with me, until I can't anymore"

The lost life continues. The love lives a thousand lifetimes. The span of one's life is only the core of their actual existence, and you owe all of it to a grieving heart.

[Sarah Dessen, The Truth About forever/ Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce/ Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son/ Meghan O'Rourke, The Long Goodbye/ C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed/ Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere/Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2)/ Fredrik Backman, The Deal of Lifetime/ C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed/ Alexandra Fuller, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness]

“In ancient Rome, grief made men twirl in their thin, leather sandals and pirouette until their feet bled; in India, it walked widows onto pyres waiting for fire. The Persians gave the bodies of their deceased beloveds to dogs; the Egyptians buried them with servants. Grief will make you laugh at the funeral, weep over the cereal bowl; it will buzz your feet until they start dancing in the middle of the night. It’s grief that inspires the unlikeliest of bedfellows… Grief will pack your bag, quit your job, buy a white dress. It will make you say yes.”

- The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan

“Such a quintessentially Human thing, to express sorrow through apology.”

— Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.”

— C.S. Lewis

{Jodi Picoult, The Book of Two Ways/ Unknown/ Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers/ Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life/ Jenny Han, We'll Always Have Summer (Summer, #3)/ Trista Mateer, Honeybee/ Unknown/ Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body/ Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag/ Tumblr User: @museyuumm}

MEGAN THEE STALLION — via Instagram | June 28, 2022

Regina Hall photographed by Amy Graves during The Ultimate Crib (May 2003).

this body is not a home

jody chan sick (via @geryone) \ edward hopper interior, model reading (1925) \ olivia laing the lonely city (via @soracities) \ joan didion on self-respect (via @girlfictions) \ dion palinckx (2019) \ james tate selected poems (via @heartshop) \ @artofbrianluong​ \ olivia laing the lonely city (via @soracities​) \ edvard munch self-portrait in hell

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mortifying ordeal, etc. 🕊

(claire schwartz / coco mellors)