“Beside the two wars he inherited in Iraq and Afghanistan, and promised to end, a financial crisis at home had pushed the United States to the brink of another Great Depression. When we spoke with the new president in March of 2009, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, the government was throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at failing banks, and the auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Politically pummeled from all sides, Obama did his best to keep a sense of humor.”
Grieving feeling
Grieving Quotes — page 91 of 132
“Loss is very painful, because any kind of loss leaves a hole in the fabric of one's existence.”
“On all levels, evolution occurs in response to a crisis situation, not infrequently a life-threatening one, when the old structures, inner or outer, are breaking down or are not working anymore. On a personal level, this often means the experience of loss of one kind or another: the death of a loved one, the end of a close relationship, loss of possessions, your home, status, or a breakdown of the external structures of your life that provided a sense of security.”
“I think it's good for people to see the positive beauty that can flower from the deepest grieving.”
“I've lost many, many friends through natural causes, through alcohol, through drugs, through AIDS. And every time I lose a friend or a loved one, it reminds me how great life is.”
“One thing I did have under my belt was, my mother lost her mother when she was 11. She mourned her mother her whole life and made my grandmother seem present even though I never met her. I couldn't imagine how my mom could go on but she did, she took care of us, she worked two jobs and had four children. She was such a good example of how to conduct oneself in a time of grief. When I lost my husband, I tried to model myself as much as I could on her.”
“I use drugs to work. I never use them to escape or for pleasure. When you turn to drugs, all you're doing is turning inside, anyway. I only use drugs for construction. It's like one of my architectural tools.”
“My mother had no end of tragedy in her life. She would make herself get up and take a deep breath and go out and do laundry. Hang up sheets.”
“What helps me is watching other people negotiate loss. I think about how we dropped a bomb on people in Hiroshima and 150,000 people were killed in one night. Those people had to mourn and they had to rebuild their city right away.”
“I don't think anything can prepare you for one's losses.”
“With the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, I had lost my main collaborator in taking photographs. So I didn't know who to work with.”
“Grief isn't all tears.”
“I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.”
“I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.”
“Loss teaches you to figure things out as they come along.”
“it ultimately doesn't matter which disease gnaws away at the body - it looks the same. The flesh surrenders, grows exhausted, and the eyes ask why.”
“Decades later I would look into my father's eyes and try to reach past the murkiness of Alzheimer's with my words, my apology, hoping that in his heart he heard me and understood.”
“America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us.”
“Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it.”
“My father's body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere.”