Grief, a poem.

Whether grief is a mountain range
towering high above you,

or an unsettling hum
in a desert
you didn’t know
you’d have to travel through,

a volcano,
indiscriminate
as it wildly erupts,

or an earthquake
that never prepares you
before it breaks everything up,

a storm of waves that turn the ocean
into an inescapable dome

a starless void of silence
millions of light years from home,

for whatever shape grief takes,
its presence claims space,
unapologetically pushing the boundaries
of logic, time, and place.

You are not a failure
when you cannot
make the grief just
“go away.”

It’ll take time
to move through this landscape
and I hope you know
that’s okay.

- Morgan Harper Nichols

Burning in a hopeless dream

Hold me when you go to sleep
Keep me in the warmth of your love
When you depart keep me safe
Safe and sound

Lift me up
Hold me down
Keep me close
Safe and sound

- Rihanna

And if you were with me tonight

I'd sing to you just one more time
A song for a heart so big
God wouldn't let it live

May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
May angels lead you in

- Jimmy Eat World

All the pictures on the same walls
Looks like she just went to the store
And when you look into the mirror
Does it make you miss her more?
Win or lose, she was always on your side
Never missed a match
And when you see the moon
Do you remember?
She loved you there and back
It's hard to know (to know) what she would say (would say)
But I think she'd
Want you to live like the world's on fire
Want you to love like hearts don't break
Never look down when you walk the wire

- Dylan Conrique

Star Light, Star Bright

Under stars in late October cold

you asked, if stars are sun,

why is ours much bigger than the rest.

I said, because they're far away.

As far away as Grammy's house, you asked.

Farther still, I said, much farther. 

Where is Grammy now, you asked.

Her body's in the ground, I said,

but maybe what she really was is up there somewhere shining down

like starlight you and I can feel

all around us on a night like this.

You stood in silence for awhile

gazing up, one thoughtful hand

resting lightly on my shoulder,

one stretched out and turned palm up

as if to catch the starlight.

Then you said, almost singing

    what a pretty feeling

    to be a little star,

    white, and beautiful.

I could feel the whole heart of you

lifting dreams beyond the reach

of earthbound limitations and I

love you more than you will know

until I'm starlight and you understand

how each of us needs little stars

to lift our dreams beyond ourselves

and I was hers, and you were mine.

- W.D. Ehrhart

September has come, it is hers

Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fire-place;
So I give her this month and the next
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has
rendered already
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed
But so many more so happy;
Who has left a scent on my life and left my walls
Dancing over and over with her shadow,
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls
And all of London littered with remembered kisses.

- Louise MacNeice, from "Autumn"

If I should die, and leave you here awhile
Be not like others sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.
For my sake, turn again to life, and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you!

- Mary Lee Hall

The scars you share become lighthouses for other people who are headed to the same rocks you hit.
- Jon Acuff

Sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried, but you've actually been planted. Bloom.

- Christine Caine

The winter's cold,
But the snow still lightly settles
On the trees.
And a mess is still a moment
I can seize until I know.
That all will be well,
Even though sometimes
This is hard to tell,
And the fine is
Just as frustrating as hell,
All will be well.

- Gabe Dixon

I wonder how you treasure what anyone would call a flaw
You say a pearl without the pressure wouldn't be a pearl at all
When my demons come a-callin', you don't even bat an eye
I don't scare you, and I guess that's why
You didn't save me
You didn't think I needed saving
You didn't change me
You didn't think I needed changing
My wings are frayed and what's left of my halo's black
Lucky for me, your kind of heaven's been to Hell and back

- Maren Morris

Goodnight stress, I'll see you in the morning
I don't gotta guess, you're always there for me
Sowing them seeds of doubt
I think you like seeing me freak out
Goodnight stress, I'll see you in the morning
So wake up
I get out of bed, stay up
Stay out of my head
'Cause it's dangerous
And I don't wanna lose my mind, no.

- Fitz and the Tantrums

I never look back, darling! It distracts from the now.

- Edna Mode, The Incredibles

You can't go back & change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
- C.S. Lewis

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

- Walt Disney

There is a voice inside of you
that whispers all day long,
'I feel that this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.'
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
or wise man can decide
what's right for you - just listen to
the voice that speaks inside.
- Shel Silverstein

I have learned that Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.

The only way that I can “handle” Grief, then, is the same way that I “handle” Love — by not “handling” it. By bowing down before its power, in complete humility.

When Grief comes to visit me, it’s like being visited by a tsunami. I am given just enough warning to say, “Oh my god, this is happening RIGHT NOW,” and then I drop to the floor on my knees and let it rock me. How do you survive the tsunami of Grief? By being willing to experience it, without resistance.

- Elizabeth Gilbert

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust

- Michael Gungor

There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.

- Hannah Gadsby

I am stronger than I am broken.
-Roxane Gay

There are all these moments you don't think you will survive. And then you survive.

- David Leviathan

Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Animals are such agreeable friends- they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
- George Elliot

You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.
- Mary Tyler Moore

To be happy is a choice you make every day, every hour. And refining and renewing that state is a constant pursuit.

- Julia Roberts

Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.

- Angie Thomas

The women whom I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because sh*t worked out. They got that way because sh*t went wrong, and they handled it. They handled it in a thousand different ways, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes.
- Elizabeth Gilbert

Not for all the whiskey in heaven
Not for all the flies in Vermont
Not for all the tears in the basement
Not for a million trips to Mars

Not if you paid me in diamonds
Not if you paid me in pearls
Not if you gave me your pinky ring
Not if you gave me your curls

Not for all the fire in hell
Not for all the blue in the sky
Not for an empire of my own
Not even for peace of mind

No, never, I’ll never stop loving you
Not till my heart beats its last
And even then in my words and my songs
I will love you all over again
- Charles Bernstein

Be brave and fearless to know that, even if you do make the wrong decision, you made it for a good reason.

- Adele

To be happy is a choice you make every day, every hour. And refining and renewing that state is a constant pursuit.

- Julia Roberts

We are not born with a certain amount of resilience. It is a muscle, and that means we can build it. We build resilience into ourselves. We build resilience into the people we love.

- Sheryl Sandberg

You and you alone are the only person that can live the life that writes the story that you were meant to tell. And the world needs your story because the world needs your voice.
- Kerry Washington

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
- Audre Lorde

I believe great people do things before they are ready.
- Amy Poehler

You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.
- Cheryl Strayed