Melissa Hoffman

“Death is a friend we have not met,
a voice we have not heard,
a face we have not seen.

Death is a slipping away,
a going beyond
a stepping through.

It is a fading,
as light slips from the sky at dusk,
tenderly, and with a silent beauty.

It is a leaf caught in the current,
too far for us to reach from shore.

It is a ship setting sail at dawn,
to lands we do not know,
and with friends we cannot follow.

It is a bird set free from a cage,
flying one last flight across our horizon
before we lose it to the clouds.

Death is the fall of a rose,
the drop of a sparrow,
the sigh of a barren bough.

It is a letting go,
a quieting of fear,
and a haven from pain.

Death is a coming home after a long journey.
It is a safe harbor after many storms,
and a sweet quiet rest after great labor.

Death is a road we have not walked.
a place we have not seen,
a friend we have not met.

It is a going and a coming,
a departure,
and an arrival.

an end and a beginning.”
― Joan Walsh Anglund, The Friend We Have Not Met: Poems of Consolation

“Treasure this. Treasure the way their eyes light up when you walk into a room. Treasure even the mornings they cry for you, the ones when you have to unwind and tear their arms from around your neck as you leave. Never again, I would tell my younger self—never again will someone need and love you with the intensity that James and Alexander do, right now.”
― Mary Louise Kelly, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs

“You learn not to dignify the behavior with a response.”
― Mary Louise Kelly, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs

“It has to do with how two competing ideas can coexist. How two contradictory thoughts can both be true. Do I regret going? No. Do I regret leaving my babies? Yes.
I speak from personal experience when I say that the following holds true, whether children are newborns or nearly grown: it is possible both to hate leaving them, and to be terribly glad that you went.”
― Mary Louise Kelly, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs