mandi roze;

“Wherever you are in your grief, please know that no matter what ANYONE else says, you do not have to “move on.” It’s an inane concept. You will continue to live, because you continue to live. Your grief, and the love that fuels it, will shift and change of its own will. You will change and grow and experience - even when you don’t want to. But the love you shared remains. You no more need to move on from it than it needs to move on from you.”

“When someone you love dies, people ask you how you’re doing, but they don’t really want to know. They seek affirmation that you’re okay, that you appreciate their concern, that life goes on and so can they. Secretly they wonder when the statute of limitations on asking expires (its three months, by the way. Written or unwritten, that’s about all the time it takes for people to forget the one thing that you never will).”

“My grief and I are still so ill-acquainted; two strangers sharing one body. We bump into each other while reaching for the toothbrush, while walking the dog across the street. And I’m so close to recognizing her, I’ve listened to her cry at the bottom of the bathtub and watched her rub her eyes at a funeral. I want to tell her it’s all okay, I’m here too, and we can be here together, I am just too afraid to speak.”

“Grieving people aren’t idiots. They don’t need to be reminded that life goes on, because time moves ever forward, whether we want it to or not.”

“Sometimes you have grief under control. It lies low, under the radar, to where you no longer notice it. Sometimes grief hits you like a fucking freight train. You don’t know when it will happen. It could’ve been years since the last wave of it hit, but you are wracked with pain and sadness, until there’s nothing but numbness left.”

“I wasn’t showing what I really felt. Real grief is ugly and uncomfortable. People look away from grief the same way they look away from severed limbs or gaping wounds. What they want is pain like death on a stage: beautiful, bloodless, presented for their entertainment”

“You attend the funeral. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.”