Mood reader

“Grief is an appallingly solitary experience. What rips one person open may well be something that others merely glance at in a newspaper and feel nothing for. We shield ourselves against pain; we’re very adept at moving on when it comes to the pain of other–it’s a natural defense mechanism–until pain hits us in the middle of the chest like a well-thrown spear. Then you stagger and can’t imagine moving on. So yes, any tradition that helps lighten grief has value, although I suspect it’s never enough. Time is a soother, of course, but time is also the great eroder. Time makes everything go away, pain and grief, but also life itself. I think what helps with grief is a belief system that places it in a greater context, that invests it with meaning. Because that’s the killing part, when grief is meaningless. And so Tomas walks backwards, a reaction as absurd as the grief he has to endure.”
― Khalid Hosseini