Navigating the Riptide of Grief: Literary Wisdom and Personal Insights on Loss and Healing

When the waves of grief washed over me more than a decade after my father's passing, I was caught in the riptide of sorrow when I least expected it. It's with these personal, often raw moments in mind that we bring you our latest bonus episode, hoping to touch hearts and offer solace to those who have experienced the sting of loss. 

With the diverse perspectives of Tolstoy's reflection on love and grief, to the grounding words of Joan Didion on our complicated mortality, we seek to provide a beacon of hope and understanding. 

We don't pretend to have all the answers, but together, we traverse the rugged terrain of mourning, finding comfort in shared experiences and the promise of healing that time brings.
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Illustration by Elena Kaminskaia

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

We all have to deal with grief at times in our lives. We never really know when grief will show up. Even when we know that a loved one is sick or dying, the actual passing of that person is still a shock to most of us. When my father died, his passing was a huge shock, even though he had been sick for a long time. That was over 10 years ago and I still find myself tearing up at unexpected times. Prior to his funeral, I used to go to the parking lot of the funeral home in the middle of the night just to be near him.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Maybe you're going through something like this, or someone close to you is, and you're wondering how to get through all the pain, your pain or the pain of the person that you love. Here are five quotes that might help with the grieving process. I hope they help you and the person you love. Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but the same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. Leo Tolstoy gives silent words. The grief that does not speak knits up the overwrought heart and bids it break. William Shakespeare we are imperfect mortal beings. Aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses will also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves as we were, as we are no longer, as we will one day not be at all. Joan de Dion Grief is a most peculiar thing.

Speaker 1: 2:36

We're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time and a little less, and one day we wonder what has become of it. Arthur Golden Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on the map of time. When you're standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope. Elizabeth Gilbert, I hope these quotes have helped you. Grief is different for everyone, but I think it always helps to know that you are not alone and that you are loved. God bless.