Stephanie’s Reviews > The Poppy Fields > Status Update

“Love changes us. It straightens us, and dents us, and lifts us, and guides us. If we sleep, if we suffer the side effect, if we’re no longer shaped by the people we love, who are we?”

“The love itself endures. The love itself is baked into our memories. The love itself is what slips across our cheeks when we cry, it’s what tugs at our lips when we smile. It’s the yearning pit in our stomach, the urge to make them proud. It’s the gratitude in knowing we were gifted something real.”

“There is only one reason anyone would sleep at the Poppy fields. Love. Love makes people do wild things, things they can’t understand, things they may have sworn they would never do. So, if they ever lost their loved one, I imagine they might do just about anything. But here’s the thing; they haven’t lost love, they’ve lost the physical, visible, tangible layer of love, but not love itself.”

“I remember my mother saying once that death anoints all sinners as saints. You read any eulogy or obituary, and you’d think that anyone who ever died was perfect. When someone’s gone, it’s easy to forget all the flaws, all the fights. But that flattens them. It makes them boring.”

“Donna looked down at her husband‘s words, forever inked in his slanted handwriting. She remembered, kissing her husband. “Make it a double,” he would always say. And then she would kiss him again.” 🥹

“There was so much of Donna that hadn’t changed in the past 19 months, she was still a mother, a sister, a grandmother, a friend, a businesswoman, a neighbor, a crafter of killer cocktails, I lover of music and painting. But she was something else now, too. A survivor.”

“ losing someone it’s not like a sickness or a temporary rough patch you’re just trying to deal with. Even if you sleep for two months and wake up and feel less awful, the Work isn’t done. This doesn’t end. This is the rest of your life. There’s no getting over, they’re just getting on. Figuring out who you are now, because you sure as hell aren’t the same person as before.”

“ You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Winnie the Pooh!

“I don’t think the sleep sent the thumbtack to me.I think it was Allen talking to me and he was probably always talking to me, from the moment that he died, but I just couldn’t hear it until after I’d slept. I’d been so focused on mourning the end of our conversation that I didn’t realize it could actually keep going.That of course, it would never be the same as before, but I could still hear him again”

Chapter 40! I’m excited I’m about to approach the climax, but I’m also preparing myself for the aftermath.