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Wendy Sumner-Winter
https://www.wendysumnerwinter.com
In Berlin evil came to them slowly and then all at once. The rules changed by the hour, the punishments grew worse, and the angel in the black coat wrote down so many names in his Book of Death there was no room for the newly departed.
“Is it possible to be possessive of one's pain?”
― Notes on Grief
― Notes on Grief
“In truth, at first it is a protective stance, a shrinking from further pain, because I am drained limp from crying, and to speak about it would be to cry again. But later it is because I want to sit alone with my grief. I want to protect—hide? hide from?—these foreign sensations, this bewildering series of hills and valleys.”
― Notes on Grief
― Notes on Grief
“But I cannot always run, and each time I am forced to squarely confront my grief—when I read the death certificate, when I draft a death announcement—I feel a shimmering panic. In such moments, I notice a curious physical reaction: my body begins to shake, fingers tap uncontrollably, one leg bobbing. I am unable to quiet myself until I look away. How do people walk around functioning in the world after losing a beloved father? For the first time in my life, I am enamored of sleeping pills, and, in the middle of a shower or a meal, I burst into tears.”
― Notes on Grief
― Notes on Grief
“Another revelation: how much laughter is a part of grief. Laughter is tightly braided into our family argot, and now we laugh remembering my father, but somewhere in the background there is a haze of disbelief. The laughter trails off. The laughter becomes tears and becomes sadness and becomes rage. I am unprepared”
― Notes on Grief
― Notes on Grief
“My sister Uche says she has just told a family friend by text, and I almost scream, “No! Don’t tell anyone, because if we tell people, then it becomes true.”
― Notes on Grief
― Notes on Grief
Red Lemonade
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