Wendy Sumner-Winter

“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”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 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.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“Is it possible to be possessive of one's pain?”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“It is instinctive my recoiling. I imagine the confusion of some relatives, their disapproval even, when faced with my withdrawal; the calls I leave unanswered, the messages unread..”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief