There is always hope

“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.”
― José N. Harris, MI VIDA: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love

“I guess by now I should know enough about loss to realise that you never really stop missing someone – you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence.”
― Alyson Noel, Evermore

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Grief is forever. It doesn’t go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That’s just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don’t get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”
― Jandy Nelson, The Sky is Everywhere

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena

“I lost a child,” she said, meeting Lusa’s eyes directly. “I thought I wouldn’t live through it. But you do. You learn to love the place somebody leaves behind for you.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer

“We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world–the company of those who have known suffering.”
― Helen Keller, We Bereaved

“I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: “‘T will keep.”

I woke and chid my honest fingers,—
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“When you lose someone, you get used to living day to day without them. But you’ll never get used to the “10 second heartbreak.” That’s the time it takes to wake to full consciousness each day and remember…”
― Nina Guilbeau

“’Better to have loved and lost,’ my ass.
Anyone parroting that little platitude had obviously never lost anyone of consequence.”
― Nenia Campbell, Touched with Sight

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”
― Vicki Harrison

“Beautiful memories silently kept of a baby we love and will never forget.”
– Author Unknown

“The death of a baby is like a stone cast into the stillness of a quiet pool; the concentric ripples of despair sweep out in all directions, affecting many, many people.”
– John DeFrain, American author and university professor

“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty look, repeats his words,
Remembers me of his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form”
– William Shakespeare, British playwright

“Think of your child, then, not as dead, but as living; not as a flower that has withered, but as one that is transplanted, and touched by a Divine hand, is blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those of earth.”
– Richard Hooker, British theologian

“There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower, American president

“Ye have lost a child — nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere.”
– Samuel Rutherford, Scottish theologian and author

“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.”
– Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss psychiatrist and author

“When those you love die, the best you can do is honor their spirit for as long as you live. You make a commitment that you’re going to take whatever lesson that person or animal was trying to teach you, and you make it true in your own life… It’s a positive way to keep their spirit alive in the world, by keeping it alive in yourself.”
– Patrick Swayze, American actor

There is always hope