Paula

“There is no bad luck. There is only life, and it's heartbreaking and awful sometimes, but it's still beautiful and precious.”
― Viola Shipman, The Hope Chest

“There are no ghosts in this house, my father would say to me. What you hear are the echoes it has kept to remind us of all those who've been here. (from The Murmur of Bees)”
― Sofía Segovia

“Everyone had moments that acted like a prism, Claire believed, breaking up visible matter so you could see elementally what was in front of your eyes.”
― Tiffany Baker

“Grief can destroy you or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time,so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
― Dean Koontz