David Kessler > Quotes

“Each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn't mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“But like it or not, change happens and, like most things in life, doesn't really happen /to us/ - it just happens.”
― David Kessler, Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living

“You don't have to experience grief, but you can only avoid it by avoiding love. Love and grief are inextricably intertwined.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Maturity is when you accept the fact that two contradictory ideas can exist together.”
― David Kessler, Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die

“When someone dies, the relationship doesn't die with them.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“If I had my life to live over again, I would find you sooner so that I could love you longer.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Healing doesn’t mean the loss didn’t happen. It means that it no longer controls us.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Your loss is not a test, a lesson, something to handle, a gift, or a blessing. Loss is simply what happens to you in life. Meaning is what you make happen.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Life gives us pain. Our job is to experience it when it gets handed to us. Avoidance of loss has a cost.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. Lose your child and you’re… nothing. —Tennessee Williams”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“A loved one’s death is permanent, and that is so heartbreaking. But I believe your loss of hope can be temporary. Until you can find it, I’ll hold it for you. I have hope for you. I don’t want to invalidate your feelings as they are, but I also don’t want to give death any more power than it already has. Death ends a life, but not our relationship, our love, or our hope.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“People often say, “I don’t know how you’re doing it.” I tell them that I’m not. I’m not deciding to wake up in the morning. I just do. Then I put one foot in front of the other because there’s nothing else to do. Whether I like it or not, my life is continuing, and I have decided to be part of it.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Death ends a life, but not our relationship, our love, or our hope.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“The will to save a life is not the power to stop a death.”
― David Kessler, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

“While death may look like a loss to the living, the last hours of a dying person may very well be filled with fullness rather than emptiness.”
― David Kessler, Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die

“After all my years working with the dying and the grieving, I have found that in this lifetime, the ultimate meaning we find is in everyone we have loved. Your loved one’s story is over. For unknown reasons, their time on earth has drawn to a close, but yours continues. I can only invite you to be curious about the rest of the story of your life.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“You have to cry your own tears because no one can do it for you.”
― David Kessler, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

“Love and grief come as a package deal. If you love, you will one day know sorrow.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“It shouldn’t be too surprising that the person who is actually present as we cross the threshold of life and take our first breath once again appears at the threshold as we take our last breath.”
― David Kessler, Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die

“Your pain will not always be like this,” I told her. “It will change.” This is a message that the grieving need to hear, and in the moment of saying it, I often observe a shift. The person looks up at me and says, “It will?” And he or she suddenly becomes lighter.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? —Rose Kennedy”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“One night I happened to come upon a documentary called Facing the Storm, about the buffalos in Montana. Robert Thomson of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks discussed how buffalo run into the storm, thus minimizing how long they will be in it. They don’t ignore it, run from it, or just hope it will go away, which is what we often do when we want to avoid our storms of emotion. We don’t realize that by doing this we’re maximizing our time in the pain. The avoidance of grief will only prolong the pain of grief. Better to turn toward it and allow it to run its natural course, knowing that the pain will eventually pass, that one of these days we will find the love on the other side of pain.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“She realized that for the dying butterflies were a symbol of transformation, not of death, but of life continuing, no matter what. Although your relationship with your loved one will change after death, it will also continue, no matter what. The challenge will be to make it a meaningful one.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“I guess the real question is, Why not me? Why did I think I was going to get through this life without sorrow, pain, or grief?”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Your life will never be the same, but happiness again is still possible. Never being happy again is a statement about the future. But no one can predict the future. All they can know for sure is that they are unhappy today. It helps to say, “I’m unhappy today,” and leave it at that.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“Your loss is not a test, a lesson, something to handle, a gift, or a blessing. Loss is simply what happens to you in life. Meaning is what you make happen Only you can find your own meaning Meaningful connections will heal painful memories”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“I’ve worked in the medical field for years as a nurse. I try to know the ins and outs of the health-care system, but nothing challenges a person as much as when his or her own family members become ill.”
― David Kessler, Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die

“I don’t want to have to tell them that my life lost all its meaning when they died. They loved me, and they wouldn’t want that.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“When it comes to food, we are, in essence, following an eating script that has been written into the circuits of our brains.”
― David Kessler

“I often wonder what kind of a man he would have become. But I think I got a glimpse of that.”
― David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief