Loss Of A Spouse Quotes

It's not that motherhood is out of reach, it's that it's just out of reach. It's not that motherhood didn't happen, it's that it almost did and, in fact, still could. The difference between the grief of infertility and other reasons for mourning - the loss of a spouse, for example - is in that promise of 'just,' in 'almost,' in 'still could. ~ Alexandra Kimball

The world is full of widows--several among my closer friends. We have each known that grim rite of passage, have engaged with grief and loss, and have not exactly emerged but found a way of living after and beyond. It is an entirely changed life, for anyone who has been in a long marriage--forty-one years, for me: alone in bed, alone most of the time, without that presence towards which you turned for advice, reassurance, with whom you shared the good news and the bad. Every decision now taken alone; no one to defuse anxieties. And a thoroughly commonplace experience--everywhere, always--so get on with it and don't behave as though you are uniquely afflicted. I didn't tell myself that at the time, and I doubt if it would have helped if I had, but it is what I have come--not so much to feel as to understand. ~ Penelope Lively

The incandescent, phosphorescent truth is that whatever you're facing – bankruptcy, unemployment, loss of a spouse – isn't going to kill you ~ Karl Wiggins

He always kept a handful of stars in his pockets and rays of sunshine in his smile, a
hurricane in his eyes and whole galaxies in his mind. And now when I close my eyes, my mind roams and enters the cave where our memories still resided. There's so much I wish I could tell you, but most of all I wonder how you could do this to us. I'm yet again stuck in this darkness that seems to never end. ~ Victoria Haugnes

Your father lies beneath a stone,' old Aedwen mumbles, dozing at her wheel, and Godric thinks how it's a stone as well they're all beneath. The stone is need and hurt and gall and tongue-tied longing, for that's the stone that kinship always bears, yet the loss of it would press more grievous still. ~ Frederick Buechner

Orientation in time, space, and status are the essentials of social existence, and the Balinese, although they make very strong spirits for ceremonial occasions, with a few startling exceptions resist alcohol, because if one drinks one loses one's orientation. Orientation is felt as a protection rather than as a strait jacket and its loss provokes extreme anxiety. ~ Margaret Mead

Loss of cell phone reception inside of a building generally indicates that the following two issues may be present: 1. High electromagnetic interference (EMI) environment from dirty electricity that is being generated by electronic products. 2. Shielding and Faraday cage effects from metalwork in the building. ~ Steven Magee

If we think of belonging only as membership in a club, organization, or church, we miss the point. Belonging is the risk to move beyond the world we know, to venture out on pilgrimage, to accept exile. And it is the risk of being with companions on that journey, God, a spouse, friends, children, mentors, teachers, people who came from the same place we did, people who came from entirely different places, saints and sinners of all sorts, those known to us and those unknown, our secret longings, questions, and fears. ~ Diana Butler Bass

My idea for 'BoneMan's Daughters' came from the loss of my own daughter when she left home to live with a monster at age 18. I wanted to throttle the man, but she was in love, so all I could do was hope, pray and cry. ~ Ted Dekker

Why do you think there's so many thousands of Cuban doctors in Florida? Because they all had to leave Cuba. Because doctors were rich, and so the [Fidel] Castro government began confiscating all their property. Not much different from this plan to tax you at a higher rate if you and your family, you and your spouse make over $250,000. You're rich! So they must confiscate more your money. ~ Rafael Cruz

For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond this tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs. ~ Sharon Salzberg

But Republicans put God and family on their side and 'we like that. The Scripture says Jesus wants us to be about his Father's business.' Their faith had guided them through a painful loss of family, friends, neighbors, frogs, turtles, and trees [from the pollution left by petrochemical companies in Louisiana's Cancer Alley]. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

The death of their two children isn't the erasure of two beings. It is the loss of God and the skies, it is the loss of the past and the future, of all their small-voiced words and their hearts. ~ A.S. Patric

Living with myself wasn't all that easy. I was not the young girl I once was. Once upon a time when I looked in the mirror, I saw this happy glow. Now nothing glowed except the leftover face cream from the night before. ~ Brenda Perlin

The inlet
our friend looks as he did
when we first knew him,
and until I wake I believe
I will die of grief, for I know
that this boy grew into a man
who was a faithful friend
who died. ~ Wendell Berry

When mourning the loss of our departed friends, I cannot help but think that in every death there is a birth; the spirit leaves the body dead to us, and passes to the other side of the veil alive to that great and noble company that are also working for the accomplishment of the purpose of God, in the redemption and salvation of a fallen world. ~ Wilford Woodruff

If you open a book and find that the writer is trying to impress you with his knowledge of long, unusual words or by his use of foreign phrases, close the book quickly with no sense of loss or of deficiency or of having missed anything; for the author has not learned how to write and perhaps never will, and there is no need for you to offer yourself as a sounding board for his incompetence. ~ Burton Rascoe

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

Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days - whatever there may be for the dust - the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence. ~ Lord Byron

even now, the building raised a conflicting set of emotions in her: memories of pain and loss, but also of healing and discovery. ~ Stephen Lloyd Jones

When we learn to attribute meaning to the events in our lives, we connect with our Higher Purpose, Higher Wisdom, or Source; we become Master of the Self. A gradual process, this is often tied to loss and to love. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

To grow up with the loss of your mother is a scar that never goes away. ~ Maya Rudolph

What did we talk about?

I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, gr ~ Joanna Russ

Gregori brought Savannah's hand to the warmth of his mouth,his breath heating the pulse beating in her wrist. The night is especially beautiful, mon petit amour.Your hero saved the girl, walks among humans, and converses with a fool.That alone should bring a smile to your face.Do not weep for what we cannot change.We will make certain that this human with us comes to no harm.
Are you my hero,then? There were tears in her voice, in her mind, like an iridescent prism. She needed him, his comfort,his support under her terrible weight of guilt and love and loss.
Always,for all eternity, he answered instantly,without hesitation, his eyes hot mercury. He tipped her chin up so that she met the brilliance of his silver gaze.Always, mon amour.His molten gaze trapped her blue one and held her enthralled. Your heart grows lighter.The burden of your sorrow becomes my own. He held her gaze captive for a few moments to ensure that she was free of the heaviness crushing her.
Savannah blinked and moved a little away from him, wondering what she had been thinking of.What had they been talking about?
"Gary." Gregori drawled the name slowly and sat back in his chair,totally relaxed. He looked like a sprawling tiger,dangerous and untamed. "Tell us about yourself."
"I work a lot.I'm not married. I'm really not much of a people person. I'm basically a nerd."
Gregori shifted, a subtle movement of muscles suggesting great power. "I am not familiar with this term."
Christine Feehan

Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar. Here's what really happens: The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it's still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it's been too long since you missed them last. ~ Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair -
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair -
But it's useless to investigate - Mcavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
'It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spaer:
At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime! ~ T.S. Eliot

A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude, that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoroud the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition. ( ... ) an object much less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant place in their hearts. ~ Edward Gibbon

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.] ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

But the truth is, the ten or twenty minutes I was somebody's mother were black magic. There is no adventure I would trade them for; there is no place I would rather have seen.

-Thanksgiving in Mongolia, The New Yorker, November 18, 2013 Issue ~ Ariel Levy

How do you go on knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved? How do you survive a single hour, a single minute, a single second of that knowledge? How do you hold yourself together? ~ Howard Jacobson

If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible. ~ C.S. Lewis

In early 2013, one of the largest high-frequency traders, Virtu Financial, publicly boasted that in five and a half years of trading it had experienced just one day when it hadn't made money, and that the loss was caused by "human error." In 2008, Dave Cummings, the CEO of a high-frequency trading firm called Tradebot, told university students that his firm had gone four years without a single day of trading losses. This sort of performance is possible only if you have a huge informational advantage. ~ Michael Lewis

Completing our tenure in one body, we enter another, just as one gives up worn clothes and puts on new ones [2.23]. Only an excessively fashion-conscious person anguishes over the loss of a mere shirt or dress. So in illusion, we lose ourselves in grief over the inevitable change of body, forgetting that the body merely garbs an eternal soul. The irony of mundane life is that for all our vanity, we drastically underestimate ourselves. We think ourselves mortal, when we are truly immortal. We endure painful limits to our knowledge and joy, yet as eternal parts of God, Kṛṣṇa, each one of us is entitled to innate and limitless awareness and joy. We need only claim them appropriately [6.20-22] ~ H.D. Goswami

...(S)uffering is universal. But victimhood is optional. There is a difference between victimization and victimhood. We are all likely to victimized in some way in the course of our lives. At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control. This is life. And this is victimization. It comes from outside. It's the neighborhood bully, the boss who rages, the spouse who hits, the lover who cheats, the discriminatory law, the accident that lands you in the hospital.

In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimization. We develop a victim's mind -- a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving, punitive, and without healthy limits or boundaries. We become our own jailors when we choose the confines of the victim's mind. ~ Edith Eger

And this accident came about ... ?Through nature's unpredictability not man's incapacity. No errors were committed in our maneuvers. Nevertheless, we can't prevent a loss of balance from taking its toll. One may defy human laws, but no one can withstand the laws of nature. ~ Jules Verne

The alternative to peace is war, which will expose everyone to mass casualties, misery and a loss of perspective for many years to come. ~ Boris Trajkovski

You never speak about yourself without loss. Your self-condemnation is always accredited, your self-praise discredited. There may be some people of my temperament, I who learn better by contrast than by example, and by flight than by pursuit. This was the sort of teaching that Cato the Elder had in view when he said that the wise have more to learn from the fools than the fools from the wise; and also that ancient lyre player who, Pausanias tells us, was accustomed to force his pupils to go hear a bad musician who lived across the way, where they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Laughter, and the broader category of humor, are key elements in helping us go on with our life after a loss. ~ Allen Klein

Oh, trust me Sydney Tar Ponds, you aren't the first Personification to be forgotten by somebody ordinary," Mearth sighed with a falsely-reassuring smile. Alecto stepped back from her, glaring hatefully. "Sydney Tar Ponds," Mearth added, "I've had so many ordinary people as friends in my life that by now I've forgotten all their names. At first it was difficult ... very sad ... to see them always leaving, dying, disappearing, ignoring, but after a while I realized that they weren't worth the trouble. I'd rather be in the company of other Personifications. At least they aren't always dropping dead like houseflies or sailing away to parts unknown. Nil sa saol seo ach ceo, i ni bheimid beo, ach seal beag gearr. Wouldn't you agree?"
"No," Alecto told her. "I think you're insane. ~ Rebecca McNutt

A knowledge and appreciation of history is difficult for a culture so enthralled by the moment, a culture that shuns the discipline of a larger context in any study. Unfortunately this loss of historical interest has made the present difficult to address because the context of the past is imperative if we are to salvage the future. ~ Ravi Zacharias

And when it is suggested that the inward feelings of power or inward monitions or losses of judgement are the germs out of which the divine machinery developed, I return that truth is just the reverse, that the presence of voices which had to be obeyed were the absolute prerequisite to the conscious stage of mind in which it is the self that is responsible and can debate within itself, can order and direct, and that the creation of such a self is the product of culture. In a sense, we have become our own gods. ~ Julian Jaynes

My darling Julie, I know you'll never see this letter, but it helps to write to you every day. It keeps you close to me. G-d, I miss you so. You haunt every hour of my life. I wish I'd never met you. No-I don't mean that! What good would my life be without my memories of you to make me smile.

I keep wondering if you're happy. I want you to be. I want you to have a glorious life. That's why I couldn't say the things I knew you wanted to hear when we were together. I was afraid if I did, you'd wait for me for years. I knew you wanted me to say I loved you. Not saying that to you was the only unselfish thing I did in Colorado, and I now I regret even that.

I love you, Julie. Christ, I love you so much. I'd give up all my life to have one year with you. Six months. Three. Anything.

You stole my heart in just a few days, darling, but you gave me your heart, too. I know you did- I could see it in your eyes every time you looked at me.

I don't regret the loss of my freedom any more or rage at the injustice of the years I spent in prison. Now, my only regret is that I can't have you. You're young, and I know you'll forget about me quickly and go on with your own life. That's exactly what you should do. It's what you must do. I want you to do that, Julie.

That's such a lousy lie. What I really want is to see you again, to hold you in my arms, to make love to you over and over again until I've filled you so completely that ther ~ Judith McNaught

It certainly takes grace to able to find joy in our hearts when people are experiencing joy over a gain that is, in some way, our loss. This involves more than just baseball games. It involves countless things that touch our daily lives. But God enables us as Christians to look at things not just from our own selfish perspectives but from the perspectives of others. ~ R.C. Sproul