“I began to know my story then. Like everybody's, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead. What is the thread that holds it all together? Grief, I thought for a while. And grief is there sure enough, just about all the way through. From the time I was a girl I have never been far from it. But grief is not a force that has not power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”
― Hannah Coulter
― Hannah Coulter
“Grief is shameless; it refuses to be ignored. If you let it have its way, it becomes fatal. If you try to remove it piece by piece, it only multiplies like a tumor. And if you try to fight it, it becomes like quicksand; you try to claw your way back to the surface, and for a second you feel the fresh air against your face, thinking you've survived, only to be pulled fiercely back down again, swallowed whole, nothing left.”
― Crossing
― Crossing
“...the sweetness of grace and freedom comes hand in hand with the uncomfortable, bitter-rawness of honest emotions and grief.”
― This Undeserved Life: Uncovering The Gifts of Grief and The Fullness of Life
― This Undeserved Life: Uncovering The Gifts of Grief and The Fullness of Life
“What we work out in our journals we don’t take out on family and friends.”
― A Grief Observed
― A Grief Observed
“If that’s the case, I understand why emotions are hard for you. You’ve numbed yourself to make room for the grief you carry.”
― The Fifteenth of June
― The Fifteenth of June
Jennifer’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jennifer’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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