Posts Tagged: 'grief'

Mar. 23rd, 2017

"Find", by Rachel Barenblat

Mar. 23rd, 2017 at 4:58 AM

Find
Rachel Barenblat

If I had any pull with God, everything you need
would appear right now in front of you.
A door would open and inside it
a rose-strewn path, the yearned-for embrace.
I’d take the broken pieces of the afikomen
and restore them as if by magic.
But that isn’t how it works. God isn’t
a diner waitress saying what can I get you, hon?
That’s why our sages taught: a clay vessel
is purified when it breaks and is glued.
A human heart, charged with a lifetime’s losses
becomes real when lovingly mended.
All I can do: ask God to cradle your heart
in Her own hands and make you whole.

Originally posted by

exceptindreams at Find | Rachel Barenblat

Tags: grief, poem of the day, religion

Mar. 19th, 2017

Artist Perfectly Captures The Pain Of Grief With Illustrations

Mar. 19th, 2017 at 10:36 PM

Image via Instagram.

Mari Andrew illustrates comics for more than 300k followers

Mourning the loss of a loved one is a painful part of life we’re all forced to endure. It’s easy to feel abandoned and lost while working our way through the stages of grief. That’s why one artist started creating art about it – to help others feel less alone.

“My dad died two years ago today,” writer and illustrator Mari Andrew wrote on Instagram. “It’s different for everyone, but my personal experience is that grief doesn’t ever go away, but it does change shape and it becomes something you can hold rather than something that overwhelms you—a part of you, rather than a burden.”
~~
Read the rest of the article and see the illustrations here: http://www.scarymommy.com/artist-captures-grief-with-illustrations/

Tags: grief, story of the day

Jan. 5th, 2017

Links galore

Jan. 5th, 2017 at 2:51 PM

Something for everyone, I hope! Most of these are entirely unrelated to each other. Here goes:
~~~~
Mark Gatiss Responds to “Sherlock Bond” Critic in Rhyming Verse

"No Middle Ground?" by Jim Wright, regarding politics, acting civilized, and whether the end justifies the means.

Media, morality and the neighbor’s cow: When did Ayn Rand become the Republican Party’s bible?: "The value-neutral media "ideal" has left us with a society drained of kindness and mutual responsibility", by Neal Gabler

Arnold Schwarzenegger: I am not a self-made man

compare with this one:

American Huckster: The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time, by Matt Hovak

6 Reasons Why Intelligent People Fail to Be Happy

Sane Thinking About Mental Problems--another perspective

"On Mourning", a thoughtful article by the writer Ann Leckie

(many thanks to

supergee for all these)

What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about the United Kingdom?--originally from Quora, posted by

notabler

The Taste of Medieval Food

"When speaking of medieval foods, most people think of one or two things: drab, tasteless foods, or the historically inaccurate meals served at medieval reenactments where patrons eat sans utensils while watching some sort of entertaining reenactment. Both conceptions couldn’t be further from the truth."

Tags: amazing people, food/drink, grief, links, news, psych, sh

Aug. 24th, 2016

A pair of poems by Christina Rossetti

Aug. 24th, 2016 at 4:59 PM

When I am dead, my dearest
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
~~
REMEMBER
Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts than once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Tags: grief, poem of the day

Aug. 16th, 2016

'The Lost Children' by Randall Jarrell

Aug. 16th, 2016 at 6:32 AM

Originally posted by

elenbarathi at 'The Lost Children' by Randall Jarrell

The Lost Children

Two little girls, one fair, one dark,
One alive, one dead, are running hand in hand
Through a sunny house. The two are dressed
In red and white gingham, with puffed sleeves and sashes.
They run away from me . . .But I am happy;
When I wake I feel no sadness, only delight.
I've seen them again, and am comforted
That, somewhere, they still are.

It is strange
To carry inside you someone else's body;
To know it before it's born;
To see at last that it's a boy or girl, and perfect;
To bathe it and dress it; to watch it
Nurse at your breast, till you almost know it
Better than you know yourself–better than it knows itself.
You own it as you made it.
You are the authority upon it.

But as the child learns
To take care of herself, you know her less.
Her accidents, adventures are her own,
You lose track of them. Still, you know more
About her than anyone except her.

Little by little the child in her dies.
You say, "I have lost a child, but gained a friend."
You feel yourself gradually discarded.
She argues with you or ignores you
Or is kind to you. She who begged to follow you
Anywhere, just so long as it was you,
Finds follow the leader no more fun.
She makes few demands; you are grateful for the few.

( The young person who writes once a week )

.

Tags: children, grief, poem of the day, randall jarrell

Jan. 19th, 2016

Four related links

Jan. 19th, 2016 at 6:00 PM

When Breath Becomes Air: A Young Neurosurgeon Examines the Meaning of Life as He Faces His Death

Before I go, by Paul Kalanithi

"My marriage didn't end when I became a widow" (his wife's essay)

New York Times review of his book

Tags: grief, links, medicine, psych, writing

Nov. 14th, 2015

"What is suffering for?" by Elizabeth Gilbert

Nov. 14th, 2015 at 10:25 AM

WHAT IS SUFFERING FOR?

In light of the awful events yesterday in Paris, I am sharing once more this essay which I wrote (all too recently) about a school shooting in America. Unfortunately, it is still relevant. Some of you have asked me to re-print it, so here it is. My heart is so sore today. To everyone suffering in Paris, please know that we love you and we are standing with you...

Dear Ones -

I woke up yesterday in joy, and went to bed in sorrow.

I woke up yesterday to the delightful news that my book was a #1 bestseller, and went to bed heartbroken and shaken by the awful news of yet another mass-shooting in America.

I won't be writing a political message here today. The internet is filled with outraged people arguing with each other this morning, and I can't bring myself to contribute more argument to the world right now.

This morning, I'm just writing to say: I don't know.

My heart is broken, and I don't know what to do about it — in the same way that I don't know what to do about the plight of the Syrian refugees, or the rise of ISIS, or the deterioration of the Sudan, or the stubborn endurance of racism, or the onslaught of climate change.

I don't know. I don't know how to fix any of it.

I do know this, though: I know that great joy and great sorrow have something in common, which is: they both cause us to overflow. Joy and sorrow are emotions that make us SPILL — because they are too big for us to contain.

I always know what to do with my overflow of joy — that's easy: You dance it out, you laugh it out, you celebrate, you cheer, you pop the champagne.

I don't always know what to do with my overflow of sorrow. Last night, alone in a hotel room, I lay awake for hours, overflowing in too much sadness to handle. I found myself saying again and again to God, "I don't know what any of this is for, but please help us."

I also found myself thinking about a beautiful young woman at one of my speaking events recently, who asked me how — after a recent devastating personal loss — she is meant to go on. She asked me what God intends, by making her suffer so much? I don't know what her loss was, but I could see by her face, it was very bad.

What was that loss FOR?

The answer is: I don't know.

( Read more... )

Tags: elizabeth gilbert, grief, story of the day

Nov. 1st, 2015

"Grief is like a pile of rocks"

Nov. 1st, 2015 at 6:39 AM

“I was tired of well-meaning folks, telling me it was time I got over being heartbroke. When somebody tells you that, a little bell ought to ding in your mind. Some people don’t know grief from garlic grits. There’s some things a body ain’t meant to get over. No I’m not suggesting you wallow in sorrow, or let it drag on; no I am just saying it never really goes away. (A death in the family) is like having a pile of rocks dumped in your front yard. Every day you walk out and see them rocks. They’re sharp and ugly and heavy. You just learn to live around them the best way you can. Some people plant moss or ivy; some leave it be. Some folks take the rocks one by one, and build a wall.”

Michael Lee West

...
I'm not sure if the wall is to protect yourself, or to isolate yourself from the rest of the world, or to build something useful?...Comments, anyone?

Tags: grief, quote of the day

Oct. 29th, 2015

Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason

Oct. 29th, 2015 at 6:51 PM

Picked up from

elenbarathi --many thanks, as always!
~~~~

Ganked with thanks from margaret_yakoda; full text here for reference; so much more at his awesome original site:

Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason

By Tim Lawrence

I emerge from this conversation dumbfounded. I've seen this a million times before, but it still gets me every time.

I’m listening to a man tell a story. A woman he knows was in a devastating car accident; her life shattered in an instant. She now lives in a state of near-permanent pain; a paraplegic; many of her hopes stolen.

He tells of how she had been a mess before the accident, but that the tragedy had engendered positive changes in her life. That she was, as a result of this devastation, living a wonderful life.

And then he utters the words. The words that are responsible for nothing less than emotional, spiritual and psychological violence:

Everything happens for a reason. That this was something that had to happen in order for her to grow.

( Read more... )

Tags: grief, psych, story of the day

Sep. 10th, 2015

When all is done

Sep. 10th, 2015 at 1:58 PM

When all is done

When all is done, and my last word is said,
And ye who loved me murmur, "He is dead,"
Let no one weep, for fear that I should know,
And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so.

When all is done and in the oozing clay,
Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away,
Pray not for me, for, after long despair,
The quiet of the grave will be a prayer.

For I have suffered loss and grievous pain,
The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain,
And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and pure,
Had not the pow'r to ease them or to cure.

When all is done, say not my day is o'er,
And that thro' night I seek a dimmer shore:
Say rather that my morn has just begun,--
I greet the dawn and not a setting sun,
When all is done.

(Paul Laurence Dunbar)

Tags: grief, paul dunbar, poem of the day

Jul. 24th, 2015

Rudyard Kipling, "The Comforters"

Jul. 24th, 2015 at 8:06 PM

Until thy feet have trod the Road
     Advise not wayside folk,
   Nor till thy back has borne the Load
     Break in upon the broke.

   Chase not with undesired largesse
     Of sympathy the heart
   Which, knowing her own bitterness,
     Presumes to dwell apart.

   Employ not that glad hand to raise
      The God-forgotten head
   To Heaven and all the neighbours' gaze --
     Cover thy mouth instead.

( Read more... )

Tags: grief, kipling, poem of the day

Mar. 21st, 2015

Dido of Tunisia

Mar. 21st, 2015 at 12:14 PM

I had heard of these things before--of chariots rumbling
Through desolate streets, of the battle cries and the danger,
And the flames rising up, and the walls of the houses crumbling.
It was told to me by a stranger.

But it was for love of the fair and long-robed Helen,
The stranger said (his name still troubles my sleep),
That they came to the windy town he used to dwell in,
Over the wine-dark deep.

In the hollow ships they came, though the cost was dear.
And the towers toppled, the heroes were slain without pity.
But whose white arms have beckoned these armies here
To trample my wasted city?

Ah, this, Aeneas, you did not tell me of:
That men might struggle and fall, and not for love.

(Phyllis McGinley)

Tags: grief, phyllis mcginley, poem of the day, war

Mar. 3rd, 2015

Quote of the day

Mar. 3rd, 2015 at 11:32 PM

“How foolish we are to rejoice over birth and weep over death. When a child is born, we should weep over the perilous voyage ahead of him.
What dangers lurk out there? Will he ever reach safe shores?

But when a person dies after a life of righteousness, it is cause for joy. He has ventured down to the depths and escaped with precious spoils.”

Tags: grief, quote of the day

Dec. 3rd, 2014

"Desert Places"

Dec. 3rd, 2014 at 6:23 PM

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less -
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

(Robert Frost)

Tags: grief, poem of the day, robert frost, winter

Sep. 27th, 2014

A Dream

Sep. 27th, 2014 at 3:43 PM

A Dream

My dead love came to me, and said:
'God gives me one hour's rest,
To spend with thee on earth again:
How shall we spend it best?'

'Why, as of old,' I said; and so
We quarrelled, as of old:
But, when I turned to make my peace,
That one short hour was told.

By Stephen Phillips

Originally posted by

duathir at Stephen Phillips, 'A Dream'

Tags: grief, love, poem of the day

Sep. 26th, 2014

"The Iron Gate" by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sep. 26th, 2014 at 5:39 PM

The Iron Gate

Where is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?

( Old age, the greybeard! Well, indeed, I know him-- )

Tags: carpe diem, grief, inspiration, oliver wendell holmes, poem of the day

Sep. 3rd, 2014

Design

Sep. 3rd, 2014 at 6:23 PM

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

(Robert Frost)

An illustrative photo may be seen at this link and a good critical analysis of the poem can be found over here

Tags: grief, poem of the day, robert frost

Aug. 19th, 2014

"August"/ "Август"

Aug. 19th, 2014 at 10:40 AM

Как обещало, не обманывая,
Проникло солнце утром рано
Косою полосой шафрановою
От занавеса до дивана.

As it promised, without lying,
The sun penetrated early in the morning
Spreading a diagonal saffron stripe
From the curtain across the room to the sofa.

( Read more... )

Tags: autumn, grief, poem of the day

Jul. 15th, 2014

Quotes of the day

Jul. 15th, 2014 at 7:14 AM

("I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures."

Gail Caldwell)
~~
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

― Anne Lamott
~~
"Partir, c'est mourir un peu..." Edmond Haraucourt [Rondel de l'adieu, 1890]

Tags: grief, quote of the day

Jun. 4th, 2014

One Art

Jun. 4th, 2014 at 9:06 AM

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911 – 1979)

Tags: grief, poem of the day

Previous 20 | Next 20

Summary

Tags

Layout By

Posts Tagged: 'grief'

Mar. 23rd, 2017

Mar. 19th, 2017

Mari Andrew illustrates comics for more than 300k followers

Jan. 5th, 2017

Aug. 24th, 2016

Aug. 16th, 2016

Jan. 19th, 2016

Nov. 14th, 2015

Nov. 1st, 2015

Oct. 29th, 2015

Sep. 10th, 2015

Jul. 24th, 2015

Mar. 21st, 2015

Mar. 3rd, 2015

Dec. 3rd, 2014

Sep. 27th, 2014

Sep. 26th, 2014

Sep. 3rd, 2014

Aug. 19th, 2014

Jul. 15th, 2014

Jun. 4th, 2014

One Art