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80,366 voters
“Here’s a word. Bereavement. Or, Bereaved. Bereft. It’s from the Old English bereafian, meaning ‘to deprive of, take away, seize, rob’. Robbed. Seized. It happens to everyone. But you feel it alone. Shocking loss isn’t to be shared, no matter how hard you try.”
― H is for Hawk
― H is for Hawk
“What happens to the mind after bereavement makes no sense until later. Even as I watched I’d half-realised Prideaux was a figure I’d picked out for a father. But what I should have realised, too, on those northern roads, is that what the mind does after losing one’s father isn’t just to pick new fathers from the world, but pick new selves to love them with.”
― H is for Hawk
― H is for Hawk
“Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all affliction,’ wrote John Muir. ‘Earth hath no sorrows that earth cannot heal.’ Now I knew this for what it was: a beguiling but dangerous lie. I was furious with myself and my own conscious certainty that t his was the cure I needed. Hands are for other humans to hold. They should not be reserved exclusively as perches for hawks. And the wild is not a panacea for the human soul; too much in the air can corrode it to nothing.”
― H is for Hawk
― H is for Hawk
“There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realise that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realise, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, [...]”
― H is for Hawk
― H is for Hawk
“The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.”
― H is for Hawk
― H is for Hawk
The Casual Vacancy Book Club
— 933 members
— last activity Mar 11, 2015 03:53PM
Are you eagerly anticipating the new J.K. Rowling book The Casual Vacancy? If so, this is the group for you! We'll be hosting a week-long read-along, ...more
Oprah's Book Club (Official)
— 86432 members
— last activity 1 hour, 39 min ago
Welcome to the official Oprah's Book Club group. OBC is the interactive, multi-platform reading club bringing passionate readers together to discuss i ...more
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