When all of this first happened, I didn't know where to turn. We were placed under a gag order and were unsure what we could say to whom, so we said very little publicly. My own personal support group formed from those bereaved parents that were adept enough to put their thoughts into words though books, blogs, and facebook pages...and it validated my own feelings that I was unable to put into words for myself. Here are some of my favorite quotes, mostly about grief, mostly in chronological order as it is an ongoing compilation. I tried to give credit, but some are unknown.
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People have asked me did I ever get mad at God. You know, I never did. Sadness, yes; but I couldn't be mad at the very God that held my son in his arms at that moment. ~Greg Laurie
We have to hold onto God, and not our pain. ~~ from Grief: A Mama's Unwanted Journey
...Having faced once again the greatest loss of my life, emerging with the knowledge that my wife and daughter and I have the survived through the love we are lucky to have all around us.~~Bart Sumner
Then there are moments it is all I can do. Tears stream down my face, sometimes alone, sometimes with sobbing. Rides are the hardest because I’m alone and I can let my guard down. There is no one to upset so I can feel.
I’ve never experienced so many forms of tears until I lost a son. There were days my eyes would barely open from crying so intensely and my whole body ached from the jerking and throbbing that it did to unleash the pain. Complete broken sobs. There were days I couldn’t speak on the phone because the sound of someone else, would bring me to tears. And then there are moments when I’m so pent-up, so mad, so hurt, so lost – and I want to cry but can’t. It is like you no longer have control of your emotions. You are being held hostage and someone else has taken over, the director of the tears. They come when they come and there is nothing you can do about it.~~Heather Blair
I know that He (God) has used this last year to draw me closer to Him than I've ever been. When you are pouring your heart out to God daily -- sometimes hourly -- begging for His help when feeling miserable, it changes your perspective. I am much more grateful for the little things. I realize just how dependent on Him I am. I realize that He loves me more than I know. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He's always working behind the scenes on our behalf, even when we can't see it. ~~Dawn McVey.
Forgiveness is not a forgotten memory. It's a memory without revenge. ~~unknown
We don't "sweat the small stuff." We know what matters because we know what is irreplaceable. ~~Richard Elder
People prefer to devise up any story imaginable in order to put the most distance between themselves and you, in order to convince themselves: This could never happen to me ~Angela Miller
I am unsure which pain is worse: the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will...~ unknown
In Spirit/Heaven…we see the purpose of our lives…of our family’s lives… and the bigger plan for all…Love, pain, grief, joy, hope, the new, the old…it all teaches us while we are here on earth… ~unknown
The deaths of your children and loved ones who are so greatly missed push you into new ways of looking at life…and death...And what you are promised…or never promised…when you love so deeply~Sara Ruble
Thank you God for the reminder and promise that YOUR purpose is bigger and better than mine, and that someday it will all be reveled to us. Take care of my baby girl. You know the love that I have for her and you know the depth of my pain, use me as a light and give me purpose amidst this tragedy.--Kelli Kooken
I was there when she was created and I was there when she breathed her first breath…not being there for her last breath will forever weigh on my soul.~~Kelli Kooken
Now, a year later, I remember this all as though it happened to someone else. It still doesn’t feel real. But I know it is. Everyday I live with the reminder of what happened. ~unknown
“Forgiveness is not a matter of exonerating people who have hurt you. They may not deserve exoneration. Forgiveness means cleansing your soul of the bitterness of ‘what might have been,’ ‘what should have been,’ and ‘what didn’t have to happen.’ Someone has defined forgiveness as ‘giving up all hope of having had a better past.’ What’s past is past and there is little to be gained by dwelling on it. There are perhaps no sadder people then the men and women who have a grievance against the world because of something that happened years ago and have let that memory sour their view of life ever since.~~Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments
How has your loss changed you? How hasn’t it? It can all be summed up by this Lewis Carroll quote from Alice in Wonderland: “I can’t go back to yesterday, I was a different person then.”~unknown
"It was very difficult to try to help each other and honor how someone else copes when you are barely coping yourself."
"We do not believe God purposefully struck our child with these cruel circumstances. We do know He allowed it. He could’ve saved him, but He didn’t. It’s understandable this could make a daddy angry. I wasn’t really angry, but simply bewildered. I just could not for the life of me make sense of what transpired. What mother could? I had to gift myself and others with lots of grace . I had to ask God to get me out of my bed on more days than I can count."
"We continue to go on with each of us having a piece aching for Austin in the background. And we always will. You don’t get over child loss; you learn to get through it."
"At the time, dear steadfast friends rallied around me. They listened patiently to my heartfelt renderings, questionings, and added their own memories of Austin to fortify my broken spirit. They endured, encouraged, and suffered my brokenness with a fierce determination to resist my attempts to push them away while I was drowning in sorrow."
"Whenever I hear of someone losing their child, it brings my day of loss right back. My heart goes out to anyone who suffers a loss. I know it – it has happened to me."
"Since Austin was killed I have experienced sadness that exceeded anything I could have imagined. I used to think I knew the difference between grief and depression but now I am not so sure. I am exhausted from the heartache and the pain and the grief."
"I do not always think straight. As a matter of fact- some days, I do not want to think at all. I find refuge in my work but I cannot always concentrate as well as I should. That scares me."
"This is my reality- knowing he is not going to be here when I wake up, that I can't call him, hug him or kiss him."
"I love my surviving children dearly and tell them every chance I get. I cannot tell him. Not face to face."
"The gratitude for my surviving children doesn’t erase the longing for what I wish I also still had"
"It sucks that my son would now be 18, but he can only ever be remembered as 15. It sucks that I wonder if I will ever have to bury another child before me."
"When you take the life of someone maliciously, you forfeit your right to live free. Forgiveness doesn't exonerate you of the crime; you must still face the consequences of your action."
"We know how uncomfortable our pain is to others."
"No amount of Faith could have prepared me for this. No amount of Faith can take away the pain."
"We have no visiting hours, no break for our weary hearts that wish for one more of anything."
"I don't think I will see true justice this side of heaven because his future was stolen and can't be given back. No sentence will feel fair, simply because it was not fair. But you don't get to kill someone and just walk away."
"We have found out, suddenly, without warning, just how precious and short life is. It leaves us reeling on our feet; drowning in our sorrow. We will never see that locked door the same as before. We will never feel that safety we took for granted. We no longer fear our own loss of life, but feel completely the fear of loss of another. When our living loved ones leave our side, whether to go to the store, a night out or some other errand, our hearts sink until we catch sight of them again. We put ourselves through unimaginable hell as we wait for their return and struggle to conquer this fear. It debilitates us. By the time they return or we know they made it safely to where ever they are going, we are a complete mess. For however long they are out of our sight, even as far as the next room, we feel this unreasonable fear."
"After 2 1/2 years, I still think that I’ve done my time, suffered endlessly, cried oceans of tears, so when do I get my son back? But, like you say, he stays dead. I still can’t get used to it."
"Once a mother stands by her child's grave…the threat of goodbye looms around every corner. The interesting thing for me is how closely that fear lurks beneath the surface…even after 2 and a half years."
"God has loved us through the unimaginable and has allowed us to survive because He has a plan for us."
"I don't want to talk very much and I am feeling lonely even in a room full of people."
"I know I am praying daily not to hate the reason for his death, and I ask God to give me the grace to be forgiving because it is not my job to judge others."
"[Max’s] death has shone a light on the innate goodness in people, a quality that I am sure I didn’t appreciate until now."
"Forgiveness is not a matter of exonerating people who have hurt you. They may not deserve exoneration. Forgiveness means cleansing your soul of the bitterness of ‘what might have been,’ ‘what should have been,’ and ‘what didn’t have to happen.’ Someone has defined forgiveness as ‘giving up all hope of having had a better past.’ What’s past is past and there is little to be gained by dwelling on it. There are perhaps no sadder people than the men and women who have a grievance against the world because of something that happened years ago and have let that memory sour their view of life ever since.” ~Harold Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments
"Murder survivors grieve not only the death but how the person died. Life was cut short through an act of rage and cruelty." ~~Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Newhopegrief.org
"Forgiveness doesn’t eradicate responsibility. It’s not unloving to hold someone accountable."~~LauraPetherbridge, crosswalk.com
“Forgiveness is a source of power. But it does not relieve us of consequences."
"I can decide to ”forgive,” in the sense that I will leave the vengeance to the Lord, and may use the justice system to seek some earthly justice in the meantime, to defend righteousness."
"Yes, yes, yes to an entire life that I was attached to playing out… and one singular ‘no’ erased every single ‘yes’ from that moment forward."
"...a constant flow of reminders of what once was but no longer is."
"Eventually grief became a tool God used to redecorate and remodel my life, a wrecking crew that led to reconstruction. Grief knocked out walls of assumptions, prejudice, and quick judgment and has rebuilt a much bigger room now . . . more grace filled, more welcoming to others, filled with a lighter heart." ~~Jan Skaggs
"There is no such thing as perfection, and we have a choice about how we integrate the imperfect into our lives."~~Elizabeth Edwards
I struggled to make sense of the senselessness. I’ve read books and blogs and thousands of words trying to do so. Of course, there is no sense to be made of such an occurrence. It merely is.
**This entire blog post spoke to my heart, from: https://thelifeididntchoose.com**
"I am not as fragile as I was just weeks or months after Dominic’s death. I have learned to put on a smile and pass by his favorite food in the grocery store without crying. I can remember funny things he said or did without simultaneously experiencing gut-wrenching pain that he is no longer here to do them. But I am still grieving. I am still working out how this missing is weaving itself into the fabric of who I am. And it is WORK. Much of the work I have to do on my own–I have to think about and feel and embrace the changes that have been thrust upon me. But for some of the work, I need the help of others. I need to be able to speak aloud my thoughts and feelings and receive feedback so that I’m not stuck in unfruitful inner dialogue. It requires energy and resources. While I am doing this grief work, my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy is largely consumed by it. I am unavailable more often. I have a smaller capacity to absorb sudden change and unexpected events. I’m uncomfortable in crowds. I tire more easily. And it takes TIME. I have discovered that no matter how much I want to speed up this process, it will not be hurried along. And it proceeds in a “two-steps-forward-one-step-back” fashion so even when I feel I am making progress, I discover I’m not as far along as I think I am or would like to be. So how to love well at this stage in my grief journey? When I’m transitioning from “good-bye” to grief? When I’m trying to understand this new life I never expected to live?"
"Now I am a reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history. Children — yours, mine — they don’t necessarily live."~~Jayson Greene
"Nothing fills the void of his absence. He's not replaceable. We can't go out and get another just like him._ ~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament For A Son
"A month, a year, five years--with that I could live. But not this forever." ~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament For A Son
"Grace cannot change the moral order. What is bad will always be bad. But grace will bring good out of a bad situation; it will take an evil and somehow turn it into something that results in good." ~Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised
"My faith did not begin with the accident. Still, since then I have grown spiritually in new ways. The tragedy pushed me toward God, even when I did not want him. And in God I found grace, even when I was not looking for it." ~Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised
"There's a hole in the world now. In the place where he was, there's now just nothing....A perspective on this world which once moved about within this world has been rubbed out. Only a void is left. There's nobody who saw just what he saw, knows what he knew, remembers what he remembered, loved what he loved. A person, an irreplaceable person, is gone. Never again will anyone apprehend the world quite the way he did. Never again will anyone inhabit the world the way he did. Questions I have can never now get answers. The world is emptier. My son is gone. Only a hole remains, a void, a gap, never to be filled." ~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament For A Son
"I am not the same as I was before burying a child. My family is not the same. Nothing is the same."
"The criminal justice system opens up more wounds than it heals."
"The fundamental belief that prevents chaos in our world is that we teach our children that life has value."
"My child died. My heart, my beliefs, my comfort, my joy, my safety, my future, my dreams, and so much more have been mercilessly stripped away and I’m expected to keep on living. I will never be the same again."
"My own experience and that of many other faithful followers of Jesus makes plain that loving Christ does not protect you from the evil in this world. It doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get cancer, that you won’t lose your job, or that you won’t suffer persecution from the enemies of God. And it doesn’t spare you from burying your child...God knows when a sparrow falls, but He doesn’t always stop it from happening." ~https://thelifeididntchoose.com
"But I have this sense that the story God has begun to write he will finish. That story will be good. The accident remains now, as it always has been, a horrible experience that did great damage to us and to so many others. It was and will remain a very bad chapter. But the whole of my life is becoming what appears to be a very good book." ~Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised
