Grieving Loss Of Child Quotes

Memories saturate my heart and
 the story of you spills from my eyes.

         ­­ - Grace Andren ~ Grace Andren

Behind every death lay a set of questions. To move on was to agree to not disturb these questions, to let them settle with the body under the earth. Yet some questions so thoroughly dismantled the terms of your own life, turning away was gravitationally impossible. So she would not be moving on. She would keep disturbing and disturbing. She imagined herself standing over a grave with a shovel and hacking away at the soil. ~ Laura Van Den Berg

Better to scratch the wound than bandage it: those who lose a child shouldn't be consoled; parents die to make room for their kids, not the other way around. He wasn't being cruel, he just thought a gash that deep had to be respected, not swaddled over with cuddles. ~ Yuri Herrera

She would never, ever understand the idea that a child, especially an infant, was of more value than an adult who had already gained all the skills needed to benefit the community. The death of potential was somehow worse than a loss of achievement and knowledge was something she had never been able to wrap her brain around. ~ Becky Chambers

When you become more spiritual, you can easily adjust to the loss of anyone significant in your life. ~ Linda Alfiori

We have observed, through our own experiences and those of others, that one never gets over the loss of a brother or a child or a spouse, or any dearly loved one; one simply learns to live life differently, with a sort of a hole in the heart. The wound in the heart heals over, but the tender scar remains. ~ Scott Rosenow

Bob was not a young man, and he knew about loss. He knew the quiet that arrived, the blinding force of panic, and he knew that each loss brought with it some odd, barely acknowledged sense of release. He was not an especially contemplative person, and he did not dwell on this. But by October there were many days when the swell of rightness, loose-limbedness, and gentle gravity came to him. It recalled to him being a child, when he found one day he could finally color within the lines. ~ Elizabeth Strout

The smile he gave me was warm, but he was still wounded by his mother's death. There was a hollowness in his eyes: a black hole of shocked grieving that swallowed all the questions and released no answers. When he returned to his work, cutting lengths of coconut-fibre rope for the men to tie around bamboo bracing poles, his young face assumed a numb expression. I knew that expression: I sometimes caught it, by chance, in the mirror: the way we look when the part of happiness that's trusting and innocent is ripped away, and we blame ourselves, rightly or wrongly, for its loss. ~ Gregory David Roberts

I need to ask, are you afraid of spiders?"
Nicholas blinked, suddenly caught off guard, "Yes, I'm afraid of spiders."
"Were you always?"
"What are you, a psychiatrist?"
Pritam took a breath. He could feel Laine's eyes on him, appraising his line of questioning.
"Is it possible that the trauma of losing your best friend as a child and the trauma of losing your wife as an adult and the trauma of seeing Laine's husband take his life in front of you just recently..." Pritam shrugged and raised his palms, "You see where I'm going?"
Nicholas looked at Laine. She watched back. Her gray eyes missed nothing.
"Sure," agreed Nicholas, standing. "And my sister's nuts, too, and we both like imagining that little white dogs are big nasty spiders because our daddy died and we never got enough cuddles."
"Your father died?" asked Laine. "When?"
"Who cares?"
Pritam sighed. "You must see this from our point of - "
"I'd love to!" snapped Nicholas. "I'd love to see it from your point of view, because mine is not that much fun! It's insane! It's insane that I see dead people, Pritam! It's insane that this," he flicked out the sardonyx necklace,"stopped me from kidnapping a little girl!"
"That's what you believe," Pritam said carefully.
"That's what I fucking believe!" Nicholas stabbed his finger through the air at the dead bird talisman lying slack on the coffee table. ~ Stephen M. Irwin

Making a film is like raising a child. You have to be there every step of the way, guide it, provide for it, and finally let it go into the real world and hope you have done a good job. If you don't absolutely love your film then you will loss interest in it and the movie will suffer. ~ Nicholas Ozeki

This book is for the mothers who've had to say goodbye too soon. I see you, I hear you, and I honor your hearts with wings. You are the strongest individuals alive, and I'm blown away by your strength, your ability to love, and your ability to not quit on life. ~ Brittainy C. Cherry

Marilla loved the [more grown up] girl as much as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful sense of loss. ~ L.M. Montgomery

It is a heartBreaking sound, Amir Jan, the Wailing of a mother. I pray to Allah you Never hear it. ~ Khaled Hosseini

How quickly we became prisoners, how quickly we gave up our freedom, how quickly we tolerated the loss of that freedom, like a child being abused, in silence. ~ Suki Kim

Permission is the key that unlocks the door that's been holding us trapped, muzzled, and stifled in our grief. Permission is the opposite of rejection. Permission is the opposite of abandonment. Permission lifts the weight, eases the pressure, and loosens the reins. ~ Shelby Forsythia

Grief can be a slow ache that never seems to stop rising, yet as we grieve, those we love mysteriously become more and more a part of who we are. ~ Mark Nepo

Grieving is an expression of gratitude, and that expression doesn't have to be rushed. ~ Carolyn Wells

None of them would be the same now that he was gone. But that pastor was right. His life was worth celebrating. And in that instant, she made a decision. She would cry when tears came, and she would mourn. But she would not rest there, not stay there. He would not have wanted her to live in a dark place, grieving the days his death had taken from her. He would've wanted her to smile at his memory. Celebrating every single day they had been given.
...
She had lost much, so much. But with him, she could never look at his loss without also looking at h incredible gift she'd been given, the gift of knowing him, of loving him. (No matter how short the time.) ~ Karen Kingsbury

They think I'm not dealing with my grief, but I simply refuse to give them the satisfaction of seeing it. I won't let them console me and feel like they've played their part well and done all they could do. I will not let them make today about them, and I refuse to make today about me.
Today is about him. ~ Cheyenne Berandi

The beat of her heart, the slow burning away ... of the bitter fires of the devil's arcade. ~ Bruce Springsteen

I became very good at protecting all who would ask.
How are you?
I'm all right. I'm fine. I'm hanging in there. I'm feeling OK. Thanks for asking. I'm good. I'm doing well. I'm a little tired. I'm handling things. I'm fine, thanks to all of you. I'm getting better. I'm keeping busy. I'm making progress. Fine, better, well, good and thank you for asking. ~ Christine Silverstein

It was so damn hard to find love in this world, to locate someone who could make you feel that there was a reason you'd been put on this earth. A child, I imagined, was the purest form of that. A child was the love you didn't have to look for, didn't have to prove anything to, didn't have to worry about losing. Which is why, when it happened, it hurt so badly. ~ Jodi Picoult

It's very important not to put pressure on a child. Make sure that she/he feels that whatever happens it's not the end of the world. If they cry after a loss that's normal, as adults also hate to lose. If they win a game you should make them feel very proud but make sure they know the next game will be another challenge. ~ Judit Polgar

She was grieving the loss of her youth, the closing down of possibilities as life became what it was rather than what it might have been. ~ Kimberley Freeman

There are no words, not in English, Spanish, Arabic, or Hebrew, that have been invented to explain what it's like to lose a child. The nightmarish heartache of it. The unexplainable trepidation that follows. No mother loses a child without believing she failed as a parent. No father loses a child without believing he failed to protect his family from pain. The child may be gone, but the yearsthe child were meant to live remain behind, solid in the mind like an aging ghost. The birthdays, the holidays, the last days of school - they all remain, circled in red lipstick on a calendar nailed to the wall. A constant shadow that grows, even in the dark. As I was saying…there are no words. ~ D.E. Eliot

For years following the death of my mother, I wanted to write about her. I started writing what I thought of as personal essays about growing up as her child, but I never could finish any of them. I think I was too close to that loss, and too eager to try and resolve things, to make her death make sense. ~ Tracy K. Smith

I want to talk with you today about a subject that touches every one of us. Loss. Sometimes we are faced with things we think we just can't handle...
The death of a loved one, a father, a child, and we strive to find the reason behind it all.
And when those reasons don't make sence, we question God.
We look up and we say, "God, how could You do this to us? "How can You put so much on our plate?" But we're not operating on God's timetable, are we? We don't understand God's plan. How can we? And let me tell you, this is where faith comes in. Faith can help us see His message in our own lives. Perhaps this loss is there to teach us not to take the ones we love for granted, to cherish the simple, mundane moments, to love others as fiercely and as bravely and as compassionately as we can. And in that love, human love, forgiving, relentless, unconditional love, you'll find peace. ~ Chaplain Orlovsky

When I talk about unrequited love, most of you probably think about romantic love, but there are many other kinds of love that are not adequately returned, if they are returned at all. An angry adolescent may not love her mother back as her mother loves her; an abusive father doesn't return the innocent open love of his young child. But grief is the ultimate unrequieted love. However hard and however long we love someone who has died, they can never love us back. At least that is how it feels ... ~ Rosamund Lupton

She loved beyond measure, When I was young I thought her cold. But in time I came to understand that she was too tender for the world she'd been born into, I said. Sorrow gave Dalia an iron gift. Behind that hard shelter, she
loved boundlessly in the distance and privacy of her solitude, safe from
the tragic rains of her fate. ~ Susan Abulhawa

Her question was clear-
"Father, where does the Loss reside?"
In the sighs?
Cheeks with tears wiped?
A lost appetite?
Owning a room confined?
Or in the smiles all falsified?

Thus, the Father decide,
It is no matter to hide, he replied-
"I think its deep inside,
Probably,
In the layers of your soul,
Where the body provides it,
Ample food to be-
Magnified, multiplied, intensified.
But once you clarify,
That its not to be occupied inside,
It starves of supplies,
And dies.

So child, when there is loss,
Make sure you refuse to invite it inward,
And absolutely never make it your lifelong parasite. ~ Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Another year passed on . The waves of time seemed long since to have swept away all trace of poor Mary Barton. But her husband still thought of her, although with a calm and quiet grief, in the silent watches of the night :And Mary would start from her hard-earned sleep,and think in her half dreamy, half awakened state, she saw her mother stand by her bed-side ,as she used to do 'in the days of long-ago'; with shaded candle and an expression of ineffable tenderness, while she looked on her sleeping child. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

The old lady continued, "We women, my child, are often very simple. But that any female would lack reason to such a degree that she would start reasoning with a man--that is beyond my comprehension! She has lost the battle, my dear child, she has lost the battle before it began! No, if a woman will have her way with a man she must look him square in the eye and say something of which it is impossible for him to make any sense whatsoever and to which he is at a loss to reply. He is defeated at once. ~ Isak Dinesen

For that entire journey across the rough terrain of Afghanistan, I never stopped praying that everything of the world could be peaceful, that all lives might return to normal. I believe that wish is universal for every woman who is a mother.
For all the horrible happenings that have occurred since I left Afghanistan, I can only think and feel with my mother's heart. For every child lost, a mother's heart harbors the deepest pain. None can see our sons grow to men. None can see our daughters become mothers. No longer can we see the smiles on their faces, or wipe away their tears. My mother's heart feels the pain of every loss, weeping not only for my children, but for the lost children of every mother. ~ Najwa Bin Laden

After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Throughout my life, there were a few hard days. Days where even when I tried to be happy, my heart still cracked, and Mother's Day was one of those. For others, it stood as a celebration. For me, it spoke of loss and failure. ~ Brittainy C. Cherry

The acceptable grieving period for the loss of my marriage and all the things it meant for my life had expired. The rest of the world had moved on. I was supposed to, too. ~ Christina Lauren

But inside loss there can be gain, too,like the small silver spider Bela had discovered one dewy morning, curled asleep at the center of a rose. ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (indeed it is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seems no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation, mainly (not solely) created by Germany, be necessary or inevitable. But why gloat! We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Trust your partner's way of coping to be the best they are able to do and be at every moment in time. ~ Nathalie Himmelrich

The way he said it spoke of an ache I recognized. I knew that no matter how similar they were, no two losses were the same, but despite his loss being from a different circumstance, I felt his sadness as my own. We sat there in silence with my hand resting in his. My bandage told its own stories while we remembered the girl who taught Randolf such a valuable lesson about the small turning into the large. ~ J.D. Brewer

Why are the photographs of him as a little boy so incredibly hard to look at? Something is over. Now instead of those shiny moments being things we can share together in delighted memories, I, the survivor, have to bear them alone. So it is with all the memories of him. They all lead into blackness. All I can do is remember him, I cannot experience him. Nothing new can happen between us. ~ Nicholas Wolterstorff

Protecting ourselves from loss rather than grieving and healing our losses is one of the major causes of burnout. Very few of the professionals I have treated for burnout actually came in saying that they were burned out. I don't think most of them knew. The most common thing I've been told is, 'There's something wrong with me. I don't care anymore. Terrible things happen in front of me and I feel nothing. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Until I sailed, I never would have known that children could be so brave. Which is not to say they did not whine at sea, that they did not cry at the worst times, or need their crusts cut just so, but as it turned out, they had a deep capacity for witness. In a way that I could not, they became the sea, they became the swamp. Their experience was total, without footnote. That day in the swamp, I felt unaccountably happy for them, and for myself as a child, because I knew that I must have been that way once too. I remembered the loss of childhood too well. But I often forgot the long years it was mine. ~ Amity Gaige

During the course of my presidency, it feels as if a couple times a year I end up having to speak to the country, and to speak to a particular community about a devastating loss, and the grieving that the country feels is real, the sympathy, obviously the prioritizing, comforting the families, all of that's important, but I think a part of the point I wanted to make was that it's not enough just to feel bad. ~ Barack Obama

Simple" Kate had wanted to say, "I'm already dead. ~ Kimberly McCreight

Grief is not just a series of events, stages, or timelines. Our society places enormous pressure on us to get over loss, to get through grief. But how long do you grieve for a husband of fifty years, a teenager killed in a car accident, a four-year-old child: a year? Five years? Forever? The loss happens in time, in fact in a moment, but its aftermath lasts a lifetime. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Just a boy, Just a child,
In a place where no one grows up;

Young bodies with old minds,
Dream and nightmare reign side by side,
In a place where no one grows up;

A time when darkness shrouded the sun,
Vengeance birthed from sea and blood,
Many had fallen in the war never won,
In a place where no one grows up;

When the boy's heart grieved he became more of a man,
When the pirate's heart hardened with the loss of his hand,
One dreadful night everything changed and feuds began,
Now the ghosts from their mistakes are tied to this land,
In a place where no one grows up;

Just a boy, just a child, in appearance it's true,
But children can carry terrible burdens too,
For sometimes stopping time doesn't mean forever youth,
Living, forgetting, loving, seething, bearing an all too heavy truth;

Just a boy, Just a child,
In a place where no one grows up. ~ Emory R. Frie