Betsy Gant

“Dying is something I have to do alone.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“But being alone isn’t the way to make you happy,” she said. Yet, I was happy, eventually. All things take time. Grief can be wide and feel bottomless sometimes, but eventually, it begins to subside, to grow into something useful. I spent my time volunteering as a tutor, training for and running half-marathons, visiting Aunt June and Alice in Boston. For my fortieth birthday, I forced myself out of my comfort zone, took cash out of my savings account, hopped on an airplane and spent the summer in Italy and France, reading books and wandering through ancient cities. I dated but never found affection enough for a relationship.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“How quickly my life has become another life, how pitiless this becoming is, and yet how slow I am to adapt.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“My father was older, yes, but in my mind, still too young for death. I cursed them both, my mother and my father. They hadn’t prepared me for death.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers