Wilfrid Sheed Quotes

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

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.

It's very inconvenient because every time I finish, let's say, a chapter of a book, I think I'm going to ring Richard and then realize: Oh, Christ, I've buried him. I buried him last year.

Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

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.

A requiem is meant to bring comfort.

Isn't a memorial service meant to comfort the living?

But there is a discomfort that surrounds grief. It makes even the most well-intentioned people unsure of what to say. And so many of the freshly bereaved end up feeling even more alone.

I admit that death is not just about you, it's also about the people who love you.

Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time of joyful hope and profound gratitude.

These displays of affection mean a lot to our family and are a reminder of the heart that my people have. In this time of grief we ask for a little privacy and space to digest this news; our sister was our sun and we are broken by her departure.

My father's body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere.

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.

We had already planned my wedding when my brother passed away in 2012. When you're grieving, you don't necessarily want to think about something like that, but my brother told me that he wanted me to, so we went ahead and did it.

Words do not pay for my dead people.

How one deals with the death of a loved one is a highly personalized affair. Some people weep for days; others take a hike in the woods or count rosary beads.

We all have that burning question about what happens if we lose somebody we love, especially if we lose them tragically. We wonder what fear was going on, we wonder if we could have reached out and touched them, held their hand, looked in their eyes, been there.

I'm more interested in the meaning of funerals and the mourning that people do. It's not a retail experience. It's an existential one.

Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.

The elegy does the work of mourning; it allows us to experience mortality. It turns loss into remembrance, and it delivers an inheritance.

At a family's most difficult time, I want to make sure at a minimum that they have the very basic of comforts: the ability to grieve their loss privately and the knowledge that their country is grateful for their loved one's sacrifice and service.

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

Beloved, till life can charm no more; And mourned, till Pity's self be dead.

I am left alone in the wide world. My own dear family I have buried: one in Rangoon, and two in Amherst. What remains for me but to hold myself in readiness to follow the dear departed to that blessed world, 'Where my best friends, my kindred dwell, where God, my Saviour, reigns.'