Maram

“You were never just you, and you owed it to the people you cared about to remember that. Because the people you loved were part of your identity, too. Perhaps the biggest part.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.

My mother went through it.

I went through it.

I'll be damned if I allow my daughter to go through it.

I kiss her on the forehead and make her a promise. "It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“We can deny what we are, but it won’t go away. No matter what happens, your body responds to what it responds to. As does mine.”
― Kitty Thomas, Tender Mercies

“Grief, no matter how you try to cater to its wail, has a way of fading away.”
― V.C. Andrews, Flowers in the Attic