Maggie ✨

“That’s why I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he is a widower. But there is no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“He had dashed off a note to Walter after his morning prayers, quoting the encouraging message of Hebrews 4:16. “Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Boldly! That was the great and powerful key. Preach boldly! Love boldly! Jog boldly! And most crucial of all, do not approach God whining or begging, but boldly – as a child of the King.”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“In a film literature class I once took, Mr. Hernandez showed us the scene in Jaws where Martin, the lead, is about to get on the boat, and is saying good-bye to his wife, Ellen. Ellen is worried about losing him, but instead of saying, ‘Please be careful, I love you’, she says ‘I put an extra pair of glasses in your… black socks and… and there’s the stuff… your nose, the zinc oxide, the Blistex is in the kit’. And in response, instead of saying ‘Don’t worry, I’ll come back for you’, he says ‘Don’t use the fireplace in the den, because I haven’t fixed the floo yet’. She nods and says, ‘What am I going to tell the kids?’ He says ‘Tell them I’m going fishing’.

Love is implied, love is the black socks she packed, the promise he’ll return to fix the floo, the desire to protect the kids, the detailed attention to each other’s lives, the urgency of comforting one another amidst the gravity of what’s about to happen. The most important messages are felt, never stated explicitly.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“That’s the key, isn’t it? To know the darkness will always remain, but how you choose to face it, handle it… that’s the important part. To not let it consume. To focus upon the good, the things that fill you with wonder… The struggle with that darkness is worth it, just to see such things.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames