Loved Ones That Have Passed Away Quotes

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. ~ Beryl Markham

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze.

A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that?

Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley

No one knows what causes it. It's not passed in the air. It's not sexually transmitted. It's not a virus or a bacteria, or if it is, it's nothing scientists have been able to find. At first everyone blamed the fashion industry, then the millennials, and, finally, the water. But the water's been tested, the millennials aren't the only ones going incorporeal, and it doesn't do the fashion industry any good to have women fading away. You can't put clothes on air. Not that they haven't tried. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

And I knew too well the loneliness that clamps around one's heart when loved ones have passed on before. To have that companionship, the comfort of someone being at home for you for years, and then suddenly not to have it anymore - well, every day can seem darker after that, and the vise clutches tighter in your chest every night you spend in a lonely bed. Unless you find someone to spend some time with (and that time is sunlight, golden minutes when you forget you're alone), that vise will eventually crush your heart. ~ Kevin Hearne

In Arizona we have passed laws to free our people so that they can defend themselves and their loved ones. You cannot predict where evil will raise its head, but you can be prepared for it. ~ Russell Pearce

One of the best things about Heaven is that we will be able to reunite with loved ones who have already passed on. It will be the greatest family reunion we've ever known, with our loved ones, relatives and ancestors all together in one place at the same time, rejoicing. All together at last! ~ David Berg

The true blessing of the mountains is not that they provide a challenge or a contest, something to be overcome and dominated (although this is how many people have approached them). It is that they offer something gentler and infinitely more powerful: they make us ready to credit marvels - whether it is the dark swirl which water makes beneath a plate of ice, or the feel of the soft pelts of moss which form on the lee sides of boulders and trees. Being in the mountains reignites our astonishment at the simplest transactions of the physical world: a snowflake a millionth of an ounce in weight falling on to one's outstretched palm, water patiently carving a runnel in a face of granite, the apparently motiveless shift of a stone in a scree-filled gully. Tu put a hand down and feel the ridges and score in a rock where a glaciers has passed, to hear how a hillside comes alive with moving water after a rain shower, to see late summer light filling miles of landscape like an inexhaustible liquid - none of these is a trivial experience. Mountains returns to us priceless capacity for wonder which can so insensibly be leached away by modern existence, and they urge us to apply that wonder to our own everyday lives. ~ Robert Macfarlane

Concerning the loved ones who have passed on ... do not try to make me believe that they are doing nothing, merely resting, careless ever. That would imply the condition of Hell, not of Heaven. ~ G. Campbell Morgan

Always demanding the best of oneself, living with honor, devoting one's talents and gifts to the benefits of others - these are the measures of success that endure when material things have passed away. ~ Henry Ford

You might wonder how those on the Other Side know to use my screen or my body, or even how they find me. My answer: they just know. We are tied to all those we've ever loved by cords of light. Those cords can never be broken. Think of them like a fishing line of love. If you tug on one end, the other end feels the tug. And those on the Other Side are always on the lookout for openings between the worlds. They can locate the portal they need. The most important thing for a sitter to know is that he or she doesn't need a psychic medium to communicate with loved ones who have passed. If we open our minds and our hearts, we will begin to see the signs and messages they send for us to feel their presence in our everyday lives. ~ Laura Lynne Jackson

More often than not, the people around me weren't simply deciding to give up. They were living in a culture of dependency that had been passed down from birth. My mother and grandmother gave in to the culture. And they expected me to figure out the best way to live on that same track, to game the system and not even try to escape.

My friend Ben agrees. 'Most of the time, what you see in the housing projects are generations of families,' he says. 'People accustomed to this lifestyle. It becomes comfortable, so they don't move away, and even their children stay and raise kids in the same environment.' In neighborhoods like the ones where Ben and I grew up, there is no perceived incentive to advance. After all, the checks for housing and the food stamps and assistance arrive every month.

This is why the system must be reformed. Welfare should exist only for a certain period of time, unless you're disabled and can't physically work. It should not last for a generation or more. There are millions of jobs open, without enough people to fill them or, rather, without enough people who have the necessary skills and training. This is where the government should come in, providing incentives for real-world training and educating recipients about a life beyond government dependence. ~ Gianno Caldwell

I remember how devastated my granddad was when my grandmother passed away. He wouldn't get out of bed for weeks. When he finally did show up for breakfast one morning, he was so think I could see right through him. He sat down at the kitchen table and said, 'Nothing will ever be the same because she isn't in the world anymore.' That's how I know, how I've always known, that losing what you have is worse than getting anything new. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

It's like being home again, when they bring in the hopelessly mangled person from the mine explosion, or the woman in her third day of labor, or the famished child struggling against pneumonia and my mother and Prim, they wear that same look on their faces. Now is the times to run away tho the woods, to hide in the trees until the patient is long gone and in another part of the Seam the hammers make the coffin. But I'm held here both by the hovercraft walls and the same force that holds the loved ones of the dying. How often I've seen them, ringed around our kitchen table and I thought, Why don't they leave? Why do they stay to watch?
And now I know. It's because you have no choice. ~ Suzanne Collins

I am a creature of the Fey
Prepare to give your soul away
My spell is passion and it is art
My song can bind a human heart
And if you chance to know my face
My hold shall be your last embrace.

I shall be thy lover...

I am unlike a mortal lass
From dreams of longing I have passed
I came upon your lonely cries
Revealed beauty to your eyes
So shun the world that you have known
And spend your nights within my own.

I shall be thy lover...

You shall be known by other men
For your great works of voice and pen
Yet inspiration has a cost
For with me know your soul is lost
I'll take your passion and your skill
I'll take your young life quicker still.

I shall be thy lover...

Through the kisses that I give
I draw from you that I will live
And though you think this weakness grand
The touch of death your lover's hand
Your will to live has come too late
Come to my arms and love this fate

I shall be thy lover...

I am a creature of the Fey
Prepare to give your soul away
My spell is passion and it is art
My song can bind a human heart
And if you chance to know my face
My hold shall be your last embrace. ~ Heather Alexander

What is so sweet as to awake from a troubled dream and behold a beloved face smiling upon you? I love to believe that such shall be our awakening from earth to heaven. My faith never wavers that each dear friend I have "lost" is a new link between this world and the happier land beyond the morn. My soul is for the moment bowed down with grief when I cease to feel the touch of their hands or hear a tender word from them; but the light of faith never fades from the sky, and I take heart again, glad they are free. I cannot understand why anyone should fear death…Suppose there are a million chances against that one that my loved ones who have gone on are alive. What of it? I will take that one chance and risk mistake, rather than let any doubts sadden their souls, and find out afterward. Since there is that one chance of immortality, I will endeavor not to cast a shadow on the joy of the departed…Certainly it is one of our sweetest experiences that when we are touched by some noble affection or pure joy, we remember the dead most tenderly, and feel more powerfully drawn to them. ~ Helen Keller

Shall not this bygone Eden that we knew In our Eternal Life have shape and hue? For where Time is not shall not all Time be? In that calm breast whereto our souls are cleaving Shall we not find our loved ones beyond grieving About the hearth-stone of Eternity? ~ Alphonse De Lamartine

Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason. ~ Andrew Solomon

Integrity is the only thing in life a person can truly call their own. You can have your freedom, your fortunes, your loved ones taken away by others; but only person that can take away your integrity is you. ~ Joshua Paul Anderson

I keep my kindness in my eyes
Gently folded around my iris
Like a velvety, brown blanket
That warms my vision

I keep my shyness in my hair
Tucked away into a ponytail
Looking for a chance to escape
On a few loose strands in the air

I keep my anger on my lips
Just waiting to unleash into the world
But trust me; it's never in my heart
It evaporates into words

I keep my dignity upon my chin
Like a torch held up high
For those who have betrayed me
Radiating a silent, strong message

I keep my gratitude in my smile
A glistening waterfall in the sun
Gently splashing at that person
Who made me happy for some reason

I keep my sensitivity in my hands
Reaching out for your wet cheek
Holding you, with all the love
The love I want to share, and feel

I keep my passion in my writing
My words breathing like fire
Screeching against an endless road
As I continue to be inspired

I keep my simplicity in my soul
Spread over me like a clear sky
Reflecting all that I am
And all that's ever passed me by

And I hope you will look
Beyond my ordinary face
My simple, tied hair
My ordinary tastes
And I hope you will see me
From everyone...apart
As I keep my beauty
in my heart. ~ Sanober Khan

I was thinking that it was regrettable that your tastes have grown canalized so young. There it
was, raining soup-and you were caught without a spoon. Even three days of what you were
offered-urged on you!-would have been something to treasure when you reach my age. And you, you
young idiot, let jealousy chase you away! Believe me, at your age I would have gone Eskimo in a big
way, thankful that I had been given a free pass instead of having to attend church and study Martian to
qualify. I'm so vicariously vexed that my only consolation is the sour one that I know you will live to
regret it. Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective . . . and the saddest perspective
of all is to see far, far behind you, the temptations you've passed up. I have such regrets myself but all of
them are as nothing to the whopper of a regret I am happily certain you will suffer. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I've put one foot before another and the years have passed, the time marked by late rent payments and the appearance of wrinkles - tiny ones, on the corners of my eyes. They are a reminder of my youth, and of the hourglass that we all live in, grains of sand slipping through the gap of time, each granule adding another wrinkle, another pocket of fat, another sag that I will fight to overcome, another grey hair to pluck or dye. ~ Alessandra Torre

they feel ignored, unappreciated, and unloved. That's because their context-blind Aspie family members are so poor at empathic reciprocity. As we have learned, we come to know ourselves in relation to others. This doesn't just apply when children are developing self-esteem. Throughout our lifespan, we continue to weave and re-weave the context of our lives, based on the interactions we have with our friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones. This is why it is so important for an NT parent/partner to get feedback from their spouse. A smile, a hug, a kind word, a note of encouragement: These are messages that reinforce the NT's self-esteem and contribute to a healthy reciprocity in the relationship. Without these daily reminders from their loved ones, NTs can develop some odd defense mechanisms. One is to become psychologically invisible to others and even to themselves. ~ Kathy J. Marshack

One of the most amazing things about elephants mourning in the wild is their ability to grieve hard, but then truly, unequivocally, let go. Humans can't seem to do that. I've always thought it's because of religion. We expect to see our loved ones again in the next life, whatever that might be. Elephants don't have that hope, only the memories of this life. Maybe that's why it is easier for them to move on. ~ Jodi Picoult

We did a two month tour with Taj Mahal that was really healing and cathartic and a good distraction after my brother passed away. Then I knew I wanted to take a year off, and it was really nice to have that chance to fall apart. ~ Bonnie Raitt

I think that frequently, many times in the beginning of our path as artists, we do have to deal with our upsets and our negativeness - in regard to, mostly, ourselves. We may be taking it out on our loved ones or people close to us, but really we're just mad at ourselves for not giving ourselves the time to devote to our inner development and doing the soul work through our art work. So there's a certain amount of working through that. You may have to cry, you may have to dance, you may have to get the energy moving in whatever way you can, and if you need to scream as you work that's as much of a prayer as the more refined kinds of artist's prayers. Sometimes it's a more direct kind of thing. You can scream in rage, you can scream your need for God, whatever's there for you. You've got to start where you're at. If you think that you can just start making spiritual art without addressing all the build-up of shadow material that you may be carrying around with you, and it's leaking out at the borders, then I don't think that's any good. You've got to be true. So wherever you're at, that's where you start.
And as far as the artist creating spiritual or visionary art, I think that it's obvious and important that the artist experience the transpersonal states prior to them trying to bring it out in their work, otherwise they're just doing imitative or derivative kind of work. It has to be from some authentic inner experience, and as long as you've had some experience of you ~ Alex Grey

The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her - her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that 'It isn't the same for them as it would be for us,' and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her - understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul ~ George Orwell

then I must have dropped off. It wasn't much later that I awoke - the story of my life since my mate passed away. I get tired, wiped out, even, but can't seem to sleep more than a few hours at a stretch. It's such a weird time to be awake - noon. Spooky, really. There have been a few occasions when, tired of just standing there and hoping to fall back to sleep, I got up and flew around. The dining options were definitely interesting - lapdogs, ducklings, I even saw an iguana sunning himself on top of a Styrofoam cooler. But there was also a lot of traffic and noise. I never liked the world I saw during the day. Then I started hating the one I saw at night and wondered, What's left? What changed things, albeit slowly, was learning. It's like there's a hole where my life used to be, and I'm filling it with information - about potatoes. About hot water heaters. Anything will do. These leeches, though. For the first time in memory, I was unable to sleep not because I was anxious but because I was excited. To live in a damp crowded asshole and sing - if these guys don't know the secret to living, I don't know who does. ~ David Sedaris

Whispers of a forgotten shore

When I die, throw my ashes to the wind…
Let it carry me along as my heart will lead my soul,
to the places that took my breath away.
Let it blow me about to return to those places..
That I swore were so magical I would return,
But have not,
Let those forgotten shores, forgotten places,
Be reunited with my eyes,
The splendour and the overwhelming feeling of sheer happiness,
Etch into my soul as I pass through one heaven into the next
Where I shall live for eternity
Knowing I made a promise and kept it,
I forgot nothing,
I left nothing behind,
My loved ones will greet me or follow me,
My broken promises were fixed,
And the screams in my ears of a conscience I couldn't escape,
Faded to whispers,
Till one day I shall return to Earth in a new vessel,
Reborn to live and suffer and wish this wish of mine all over again,
Knowing the fulfillment of being forever free…. ~ Michelle Geaney

Just for a minute shift your perspective and picture your family as a sacred tribe. Think of your loved ones as a carefully chosen collective of souls who have joined - not by accident, but intentionally - for an important reason: to support one another's collective growth. Does that change how you see things and how you relate to them? ~ Renee Peterson Trudeau

At my age, one should be aware of one's limits, and this knowledge may make for happiness. When I was young, I thought of literature as a game of skillful and surprising variations; now that I have found my own voice, I feel that tinkering and tampering neither greatly improve nor greatly spoil my drafts. This, of course, is a sin against one of the main tendencies of letters in this century--the vanity of overwriting-- ... I suppose my best work is over. This gives me a certain quiet satisfaction and ease. And yet I do not feel I have written myself out. In a way, youthfulness seems closer to me today than when I was a young man. I no longer regard happiness as unattainable; once, long ago, I did. Now I know that it may occur at any moment but that it should never be sought after. As to failure or fame, they are quite irrelevant and I never bother about them. What I'm out for now is peace, the enjoyment of thinking and of friendship, and, though it may be too ambitious, a sense of loving and of being loved. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

You will go through your life thinking there was a day in second grade that you must have missed, when the grown-ups came in and explained, everything important to other kids. they said, 'Look, you're human, you're going to feel isolated and afraid a lot of the time, nad have bad self-esteem, and feel uniquely ruined, but here is the magic phrase that will take this feeling away. It will be like a feather that will lift you out of that fear and self-consciousness every single time, all through your life.' And then they told the cildren who were there that day the magic phrase that everyone else in the world knows about and uses when feeling blue, which only you don't know, because you were home sick the day the grown-ups told the children the way the whole world works.
But there was not such a day in school. No one got the instructions. That is the secret of life. Everyone is flailing around, winging it most of the time, trying to find the way out, or through, or up, without a map. This lack of instruction manual is how most people develop compassion, and how they figure out to show up, care, help and serve, as the only way of filling up and being free. Otherwise you gorw up to be someone who needs to dominate and shame others so no one will know that you weren't there the day the instructions were passed out. ~ Anne Lamott

At a family's most difficult time, I want to make sure at a minimum that they have the very basic of comforts: the ability to grieve their loss privately and the knowledge that their country is grateful for their loved one's sacrifice and service. ~ Dave Reichert