We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.

                                    1 Chronicles 29:15  Holy Bible

 

 

“It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are.”

                                  Author unknown

 

 

“ Everything science has taught me strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.”

Wernher Von Braun

 

“ I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon of death, the side where we live, and the other side where we shall continue to live.

Eternity does not start with death. We are in eternity now.”

Norman Vincent Peale

 

“Death is not the end. It is just an exit to what comes next.”

By Dean Koontz   from  “Seize the Night”

 

 

“Death…is no more than passing from one room into another. But there is a difference for me because in that other room I shall be able to see.”

Helen Keller

 

 

“Some animals leave a trail of glory behind them. They give their spirit to the place where they have lived, and remain forever a part of the rocks and streams and the wind and sky. ”      Marquerite Henry

 

 

“Nobody had told him how unexpectedly grief strikes, catching you between a moment and a moment, crippling you with pain, making it impossible to swallow…”     By Marcia Willett   from  “The Birdcage”

 

 

“  Grief: the act of accepting forced change; a constant state of my existence, a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force; it is dreadful Sunday’s and Mondays that are no better, it is utter aloneness. Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn’t kill you in the making.”      Excerpt from “Companion Through the Darkness”

 

“This pain, that wakes my heart - breaking in the silent dark

Like a rising tide from out the wide deep sea

Of moving destiny,

Is but a part of that long birth

Men call the life on earth,

For this strange thing

Called suffering,

When planted in the human heart

Is but a seed

Laden with the need

Of growth, that bursts apart

The narrow soul

Seeking light and wonder of the whole;

Striving with soft, bright leaves aloft

To bloom as conscious deed

At last-

Rooted in the fallen ashes

Of the past. “ 

                               Arvia Mackaye Ege

 

 

“ Grief ebbs but grief never ends.

Death ends a life but death does not end

A relationship

If we allow ourselves to be still

And if we take responsibility

For our grief,

The grief becomes as polished

And luminous and mysterious

As death itself.

When it does, we learn to love anew,

Not only the one who has died.

We learn to love anew those who yet live. “

                                         Julius Lester

 

 

3 Quotes from C.S. Lewis, writing about the loss of his wife:

 

“ And grief feels like fear.

Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense.

Or like waiting; just hanging about

Waiting for something to happen..

It doesn’t seem worth starting anything… “

 

 

“  Up till this I always had too little time.

Now there is nothing but time.

Almost pure time. Empty successiveness. “

 

 

 “ Her absence, like the sky, covers everything. “

 

                                           C.S. Lewis   “A Grief Observed”

 

 

Other thoughts by C.S. Lewis regarding Heaven:

 

“All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it..”

“…    the longing for Heaven is “the secret signature of each soul.”

 

 

 

“  Love and suffering are the same thing-the value of love is the sum

Of what you have to pay for it…yes, he thought-between grief and nothing,

I will take grief. “ 

                                      William Faulkner   “The Wild Palms”

 

 

“ Everyone can master a grief but he that has it  “                      

                                          Shakesphere

 

 

“  I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race, for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to double that time?” 

                                          Sir Walter Scott

 

“Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it”  

                                       Christopher Morley

 

 

We who chose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.  Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.  

                                      Irving Townsend “The Once Again Prince”

 Reflections and Quotes:     Loss and Grieving