Adeeti

“Learning a new alphabet—for weeks and months I’ve held on to that notion. James was a different child than Vincent, and James’s death left us in a different place than Vincent’s death. And yet a new alphabet can only be symbolic, as I have but this old language to work with. Words tend to take on a flabbiness or a staleness after a catastrophe, but if one has to live with the extremity of losing two children, an imperfect and ineffective language is but a minor misfortune.
There is no good way to say this: words fall short.
“Learning a new alphabet—for weeks and months I’ve held on to that notion. James was a different child than Vincent, and James’s death left us in a different place than Vincent’s death. And yet a new alphabet can only be symbolic, as I have but this old language to work with. Words tend to take on a flabbiness or a staleness after a catastrophe, but if one has to live with the extremity of losing two children, an imperfect and ineffective language is but a minor misfortune.
There is no good way to say this: words fall short.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow

“Living happened until it didn't. There was no choice in it. To say no to a new day would be unthinkable. So each morning you said yes, then stepped into the consequence.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. “All along You thought The fiery current Of your lover’s breast Pulled you to the deep. But it was my heart-tide Releasing you To float adrift With seaweed.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“However, I do believe that we learn to suffer better. We become more discerning in our suffering: there are things that are worth suffering for, and then there is the rest—minor suffering and inessential pain—that is but pebbles, which can be ignored or kicked aside. We also become less rigid: suffering suffuses one’s being; one no longer resists.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow