Penny Johnson Jerald Quotes

We have this time to meet and do something, or just be together, and then we lose it and move to another kind of time, another kind of being, I guess. Those left behind must mourn, remember, and live on as we know.

In our Western culture, although death has come out of the closet, it is still not openly experienced or discussed. Allowing dying to be so intensely present enriches both the preciousness of each moment and our detachment from it.

In every parting there is an image of death.

Accepting death is a massive problem for everybody.

Between the ages of 8 and 12 it was difficult to know what my father was saying, and he moved very slowly, and then he died.

Half the bloody world is going through a divorce; more than that are having children. All of us have parents who are dying or have died. It's just the life cycle.

It will be difficult to let go but it is going to happen sooner rather than later in my case.

Not lost, but gone before.

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.

Life is change, to cease to change is to cease to live; yet if you may shed a tear beside the death-bed of an old friend, let not your heart be silent on the dissolving of a faith.

Death is something that I am still trying to figure out a healthy relationship with.

I remember I was changing to one phone from another and going through my old contact details, and so I was having to delete duplicate numbers to make room, and up came the name of someone who died, and... it felt hard to delete the name.

"When the dead are done with the living, the living can go on to other things," Franny said. "What about the dead?" I asked. "Where do we go?"

When I die, remember that what you knew of me is with you always. What is buried is only the shell of what was. Do not regret the shell, but remember the man. Remember the father.

How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!

You'll find it-when you try to die- The Easier to let go- For recollecting such as went- You could not spare-you know.

You are never truly together with one you love until the person in question is dead and actually inside you.

I fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him.

I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death, and something else I'd rather not recall just now.

And now each night, I count the stars. And each night I get the same number. And when the stars won't come to be counted, I count the holes they leave.

I like to think that when I fall, A rain-drop in Death's shoreless sea, This shelf of books along the wall, Beside my bed, will mourn for me.

Every loss which we incur leaves behind it vexation in the memory, save the greatest loss of all, that is, death, which annihilates the memory, together with life.

I try not to remember the life that I didn’t want to lose but lost and have to remember

You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?" My problems? "Yes.' And you'll give me answers? "I'll give you what I can. Don't I always?" I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space. It won't be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk. "Ah, talk . . . " He closes his eyes and smiles. "Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I'll listen.