What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is the simple part.

I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures. ...We tell the story to get them back, to capture the traces of footfalls through the snow.

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

in all the years i had blundered along in search of my own footing, she had never given me an inkling of this wish. unburdened by the demands of history or anyone else's dreams, i had wandered toward and finally reached a world far outside the plains i loved and loathed. my mother had neither begrudged me this journey nor expected it, certain that i had to make my own way. but she packed my toolbox with her great wit and forbearance before i went, and she stashed there, for long safekeeping, her desire.

People in grief need someone to walk with them without judging them.

On grief. We know where we've been. We know where we want to be.