Blanche Wiesen Cook Quotes

Her mother died at the age of 29, essentially turning her face to the wall and deciding to die. And so we can only imagine the agony she felt. And Eleanor Roosevelt really wanted to make her mother happier, and - and to make her live, you know, make her want to live. And there's something about, you know, when your mother dies, this sense of abandonment. I think Eleanor Roosevelt had a lifelong fear of abandonment and sense of abandonment after her parents' death.

Time doesn’t, as advertised, heal all wounds. Although the wrenching immediacy of grief eventually passed, the settled sorrow that replaced it might in its own way be even more intense.

I think when my mother died, it was such a - you know, a shock to the logic that I had been raised with.

I feel I am a child that's lost its mother. I feel like a calf whose mother has gone off to slaughter.

I was horrified. Absolutely heart sick. All I could think of was that after 23 years together, I'd lost my faithful ally. I couldn't sleep, couldn't get the loss out of my mind. It was like discovering that someone in my family had died.

There must be a reason that these bad things happen to me. I must be dysfunctional. So why would my dad leave? Why would he kill himself? Why would I be violated? And when you're 6-years-old, you can't comprehend that. But as you get much older in life, you begin to think what's wrong with me?

I have to say that since my mother died, I am not the same person anymore. My life has changed a great deal because it's really unbearable to think you can't see her anymore or talk to her anymore.

I do see that there is an argument against suicide: the grief of the worshipers left behind, the awful famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release.

Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn't know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you're picking up the pieces -- down to the last glassy splinter.

The hardest obstacle I've ever had to overcome in my life is losing my mom four years ago. I wouldn't even say that I've overcome it, really. I don't imagine that I ever will.

There have been three times. Once I got in a car accident and shattered my finger. A few years ago I didn't feel like being alive. That's all I can say.

There's a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality--there's mercy in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin.

It's a natural thing for a child to lose a parent. I lost my mom too young but it happened. And I'm happy she's out of pain, 'cause I love her and she's my friend.

The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.

I had heard that when people lost people, there was anger. But I definitely experienced it a lot more than I was prepared for it. Anger was not something I'd ever really felt in my life and I was not prepared for it.

Even a 30-year-old man whose wife dies is eleven times more likely to commit suicide than a 30-year-old man whose wife is living. At age 30, when men can bury themselves in their jobs and are physically and financially attractive to women, the loss of the one woman a man loves is so devastating it is often not softened even by the opportunities for many women... in brief, it is the loss of love that devastates men.

It's wrong," he says. "It doesn't matter if your parents are in a better place, they aren't here with you, and that's wrong, Tris. It shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened to you. And anyone who tells you it's okay is a liar.

...This fear was unbearable. It unwrapped who she was, as neatly as he'd unwound her bandage, leaving too much pain and ugliness exposed. Nerve endings; he'd said they were the problem [causing phantom pain in the amputated limb]." Things that cut off, that ended abruptly or died--like parents and marriages--kept hurting forever.

It's different when the person you love dies. There's an awful finality to death. But it is final. The end. And there's the funeral, family gatherings, grieving, all of those necessary rituals. And they help, believe me. When the object of your love just disappears, there's no way to deal with the grief and pain.

I had a very distant relationship with my father. It was always just me and my mother. It was a shattering blow when she died. I was 16.

I am lucky in that I have never been depressed in my life, but this is the one thing which has really affected me: the loss of my mother as I knew her.

I lost my husband, and it's a horrific thing to live through.

One moment I can be happy and laughing, but then it comes over me. It's my mom.

My mum died when I was 14. That is a kind of strange age to lose a mother. John lost his mum when he was 17.

Suicide carries in its aftermath a level of confusion and devastation that is, for the most part, beyond description.