Mary Schmich Quotes

Grief releases love and it also instills a profound sense of connection.

The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.

Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

After the loss of my sister - my darkest time - I tried to think of the beauty she'd brought to this world and the lives she had touched and the love she had left behind.

We did a two month tour with Taj Mahal that was really healing and cathartic and a good distraction after my brother passed away. Then I knew I wanted to take a year off, and it was really nice to have that chance to fall apart.

No one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness.

The paradox is, I can't miss the good things about my father while he is alive, but I will of course miss him... when he is dead.

I held the generous, strong, beautiful hand of my first wife Cassie as ovarian cancer took her life much too soon.

One of my greatest joys is poetry. I read it almost every day, and I've even taken a stab at writing some of my own. A poem I wrote for my mother when she was dying really helped me get through that hard time.

Bereavement is terrible, of course. And when somebody you love dies, it's a time for reflection, a time for memory, a time for regret.

You feel a lot of rage when someone dies. I have a lot of faith in nature, but it can be cruel.

I try to weigh out the dark and the light. They were both very real aspects of my Dad. To me, the good and the healing and the light outweigh the dark so much, and that's why I focus on the good.

I know when my parents passed away, I wanted all the support I could get.

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliation of every fault. We recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.

My book 'Trust Your Heart', which is the story of my life, will be followed by 'Singing Lessons', a memoir of love, loss, hope, and healing, which talks about the death of my son and the hope that has been the aftermath of the healing from that tragedy.

For quite a while, it didn't feel right. How could I feel joy when I lost the love of my life? I'm learning that those two things can co-exist. It will never be the same joy, but it doesn't mean there won't be joy.

Growing up in Ireland, when my family received important news, good or bad, we would boil water and make tea. It was the first thing I did when my father died in 1984. This ritual allowed me a moment to take in the enormity of what had happened.

Her death has had a huge effect on me. It felt like a big hole appeared on my left side - apparently your left side is your mother - which I thought could never be filled. Now I think what you have to do is fill it with yourself because your mother is part of you. I'm easing into that space, using it and being comforted by it.

I think, in real life, when we're facing death - that is, when we come out on the other side of it, whether it's death of a friend or a family member - you come out on the other side of the mourning cherishing your life that much more.

Your father has to die, better he dies in your arms.

The new record started out being about loss, but it's morphed into being about how relationships go on even though one person is not in a body anymore.

When my dad died a lot of songs came, and they're still coming.

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.

One of the wonderful things about this glorious holiday trip I'm on is that I'm in public with people. It hasn't been inclined... I don't know - something to do with the death of my wife. It's inclined to make me isolated.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we can open to our inevitable losses, and to the depths of our sorrow. We can grieve our lost loves, our lost youth, our lost health, our lost capacities. This is part of our humanness, part of the expression of our love for life.