Some Helpful Sayings to Take Along the Way

• To deny your pain will deny your healing.
• By acknowledging your broken heart you will begin to heal.
• Nothing about grief and the feelings is normal. Whatever you are feeling at the moment is normal.
• Few of us know how to act when we are faced with the loss of a loved one. Even fewer know how they should feel.
• You may hear the departed loved one, or see them, or experience some other sign that they are still around, or you may not.
• The relationship never ends, it just changes.  Only two things will end the relationship.  You stop using their name in conversation, and you stop telling stories about them.  As long as you do those two things, the relationship will continue.
• You can never forget your loved one any more than you can forget your own childhood.
• Fond memories keep the relationship going year after year.
• You may have to learn to say what you feel and ask for what you need even if others do not understand.
• Do not deny your needs. Take care of yourself even when you don’t feel like it.
• Your own feelings may even surprise you at times.
• Do not forget to laugh. Find laughter where you can.
• Cry when you want to and laugh when you can.
• Recovery is a process of making small and correct choices.
• Two major elements of any relationship are time and intensity. The time I knew them may have been short but if it was intense the grief will be intense. The relationship may have been a long one spanning many years. The grief will be intense.
• Recovery is a journey. A long and intense relationship will produce a long journey to recovery. However there will be recovery.
• You are invited to enjoy a new life. The old is gone and the new one must be forged. Explore endless possibilities and new potentials for your new life. Choose life because it is, after all, a choice.
• “To live gloriously, we need hope, not security; the freedom not only to succeed, but to fail and come back. The tragedy of life lies not in failing to reach your goals, but having no hope and thus no goals to reach.” –Dr. Henry Viscardi, Founder, The National Center for Disabilities Services