Jennifer Blohn

“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.”
― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

“Just so you know, I realize that what happened is not in any way okay, but I think we're going to have to pretend like it is.

Because it wasn't okay and never will be. We will power through it; I will continue to power through it-all the stagnant, soul-crushing grief-but it will never be okay that my mom is not here.”
― Julie Buxbaum, Tell Me Three Things

“Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

“We all practice self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in a man's head for sanity alongside each grief, each worry, each terror that he owns. I’m well used to burying such things in a dark cellar and moving on.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools