Hannah Beckerman > Quotes

“There’ll always be someone who disapproves of the choices you make. But as long as you understand the reasons for them, as long as you’re happy with them and no one’s unduly hurt by them, you need to be strong enough – brave enough – to make your own decisions.”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“I've learnt that love isn't about our place at the centre of it, but about finding the generosity to allow those we care about to discover happiness wherever they so choose, with whomever they so desire , even if - for whatever reason - that isn't with us.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Dead Wife's Handbook

“Once upon a time Audrey had believed that her life was set of a clear path and that any diversion led to a complete derailment. Only now did she realize that those moments of change were not an ending but a beginning: a chance for a different kind of life, a different kind of journey, a different form of happiness" (p. 348)”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“All we can do is trust those that we encounter on our journey through life - the parents and children, the partners and siblings, the friends and colleagues - will transmit little pieces of us, from the snippets we taught and the things we said to the smallest inventions of our own making, through the generations, keeping the flame of our memory alive long after our bodies have died. And that this, after all, is life's great immortality project.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Dead Wife's Handbook

“Each twisted preference designed to destabilise my sense of identity, to shape me into the wife he wanted me to be: compliant and isolated, uncertain and dependent. A wife who mirrored his interests, as though he were Pygmalion and I Galatea, carved from ivory, every sweep of my desires a product of his creation. A woman who didn’t dare leave the house for too long in case I missed his calls: those regular daily interactions designed to keep me at home, entirely reliant on him.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting

“It's the acceptance that my greatest bequest to the world was love, and that love is one of the most enduring legacies anyone can leave rippling behind them. And it's with this acceptance that I can now honestly say, hand on defunct heart there's not a single thing I'd change about the way I lived my life, even if that mythical opportunity were available to me.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Dead Wife's Handbook

“You can’t change others’ behavior. You can only control your own reaction to it.”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“sometimes the thing that breaks your heart might be the very thing you hope for.”
― Hannah Beckerman

“The overriding memory you have of your dad is this all-powerful, tyrannical man. And that’s the version of him you’re still carrying inside you. But that’s not who he is any more. He’s an old man. He’s frail and weak. And perhaps if you saw him like that, it might . . . I don’t know . . . take away some of his power.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting

“I've never hated you, Jess. Never. I've been angry with you. I've been bewildered by you. There've been times I've wanted to scream with frustration at you. But I've never hated you. You're my sister and I love you. I love you even when you're acting in ways I don't understand, even when I don't see you for years. I never stopped loving you." (p. 343)”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“Siento que el mundo está ahí fuera esperándome, siempre y cuando sea lo bastante valiente para salir a buscarlo.”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“Turning to Jack, she asks how he’s finding the new school, watches him hesitate before he tells her it’s good, he likes it. She can see his desire to reassure her, wishes there was some way to impart to him the truth about motherhood; that, having witnessed your child’s every facial response since the day they were born, their expressions are like words in a book – as legible and clear as sentences on a page. Nicole can sense, immediately, that Jack has not embraced his new school as easily as Nathaniel, that he may still need additional support, and she resolves to call his Head of Year the next time she is allowed access to a phone.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“The desire to control, to domineer, to intimidate.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting

“that this is not the first time Stephen has tried to twist the narrative, cast himself as the victim. I do not know how I have reacted in the past. All I know is that I won’t tolerate it now.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting

“Remembering those we’ve lost is key to our ability to live without them. One cannot exist without the other. We cannot learn to bear their absence if we do not allow ourselves to remember the significance of their presence.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“I ignore him shouting at me that my life is empty, pointless, that I am weak, pathetic, that I will soon be begging him to take me back.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting

“The years in which they need you—in which they really need you—flash by like a star shooting through the sky.”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“it is a gift in life that we do not know what awaits us. If we did, we may not have the strength to bear witness.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“the”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“All she wants is for her boys to be happy. For them to be safe and contented and at peace with themselves. It is the most difficult aspect of parenting, she has found: the powerlessness to fashion the world as you would like it to be for your children. Her inability to shield her boys from adversity feels like one of the most inevitable failures of motherhood.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“It is the most difficult aspect of parenting, she has found: the powerlessness to fashion the world as you would like it to be for your children.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“the wealth of opportunities spread out before them like roads paved with gold.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting

“How, Audrey thought, do you get to the end of your life and feel as though you’ve barely begun?”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“It occurs to me that the greatest test of unconditional love may be allowing the people we care most about to love and be loved by others.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Dead Wife's Handbook

“A parent’s love for their child is all-consuming; it goes beyond words, transgresses rational thought. Supersedes, sometimes, morality, conscience, the law.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“Sometimes it felt as though she were running to stand still; that however hard she worked, the goalposts were forever shifting, the expected levels of attainment ever increasing”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“anger was now like a fourth member of their family, to be considered, managed and placated at all times.”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“To grieve is an act of remembrance,”
― Hannah Beckerman, Three Mothers

“even when you’re convinced relationships are beyond repair, there’s always hope.”
― Hannah Beckerman, If Only I Could Tell You

“My eyes dart from one person to the next – elderly couples, women on bikes, men jogging, children playing – searching for a face I know too well and would be happy never to see again. But there is no one I recognise. Just my own anxiety, lurking in the shadows, refusing to believe he will ever let us be free.”
― Hannah Beckerman, The Forgetting