H Influencer Collective / Alivia Latimer

60 Heartbreaking Quotes That Will Heal You After The Loss Of A Loved One

"To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die" - Thomas Campbell
Marisa Donnelly
September 28, 2016
“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”
— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Tagged: Death, Crying, Tears
“I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual.”
— Jojo Moyes, Me Before You
Tagged: Writing, Beautiful Writing, Love, Kissing
“Loss is a part of life. Over the years I’ve lost several people who are dear to my heart. Nothing can ever bring them back but when I think of them, their values and virtues, I can keep their spirit alive within me and that is a meaningful feeling. The most important thing to remember, however, is to make the most of the precious time we have with the ones we love.”
— Demi Lovato, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year
Tagged: strength, Finding Strength, Losing A Loved One
“I was thinking about the finality of it all – how somebody can leave your world in the blink of an eye and be gone forever. It’s too enormous to think about. It’s too hard. And then you’re just supposed to go on, right, like just deal with it, I mean really you’re only supposed to be sad for as long as the flowers last and then, oh, time to go back to telling jokes and reminiscing about the old days.”
— Haley James Scott, One Tree Hill
Tagged: One Tree Hill, Life, Death, Moving On
“What is death? A loss, a disappearance, a letting go, a saying good-bye. When you cling you refuse to let go, you refuse to say good-bye, you resist death. And even though you may not realize it, that is when you resist life too.”
— Anthony De Mello, The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello (Image Pocket Classics)
Tagged: Death, Dying, Loss, Defining Death
“Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I'm sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I'm gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you're gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you—they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart.”
— Old Man, Looking for Alaska
Tagged: Ending, End Of Life, Being human, Death, Impending Death, Falling Apart
“Grief is like the ocean: it's deep and dark and bigger than all of us. And pain is like a thief in the night. Quiet. Persistent. Unfair. Diminished by time and faith and love.”
— Samantha Walker, One Tree Hill Season 6
Tagged: Grieving, Loss, Relationships, Death Quotes
“There was a lot they didn’t tell you about death, she had discovered, and one of the biggies was how long it took the ones you loved most to die in your heart.”
— Stephen King, Lisey's Story
Tagged: Death Quotes, Mourning, Death, Relationships, After Life
“And then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness.”
— Hazel, The Fault in Our Stars
Tagged: Grief, Dealing With Sickness, Dealing With Death, Death, Illness, cancer, Pain
“Sometimes you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty spaces it leaves behind.”
— Gayle Forman, Just One Day
Tagged: Leaving, Loss, Relationships Ending, Gone, Mourning, Death Quotes
“The grief. It came crashing in like a tidal wave. The very thought of it still sends a shiver down my spine: makes me wince a little. The weight of it. Those vacant, anguished expressions, and the way we nestled into each other, softly, and the endless cups of too-strong tea that were made by distracted mothers, because sometimes, there is so little else to do. The nights we just clung to each other, licking the salt of our eyes from our lips, and the nights we walked the streets he once did beneath summer skies, stumbling into each other, laughing, because looking back was the only way to survive in the heat of it, and looking forward was.

Just.
Impossible.”
— Kathy Brown, I Remember Him In The August Sun
Tagged: Grief, Loss, Losing A Loved One, Dealing With Death, Understanding Death, Pain, Survival, Moving On, After Death
“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”
— Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
Tagged: Loss, Death, Mourning
“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”
— Westley, The Princess Bride
Tagged: Romantic Speeches, Love, romance, Death, True Love
“The emotions you experience are normal, even if they aren't what you expected. Allow yourself to feel each as it arises and understand that it will take some time to adjust to your new circumstances.”
— Seven Ponds, After Death Planning Guide
Tagged: Loss, Grief, Grieving, Coping With Loss, After Death
“Acceptance is not necessarily a permanent state, nor does it mark a return to happiness or your pre-loss state of mind. The death of your loved one has changed the circumstances of your world, and acceptance marks your understanding of this, as well as your willingness to move forward in life without them. Think of the loss as a tear in the fabric of your life: the pain will ease over time, but in some ways the loss may always be with you.”
— Seven Ponds, After Death Planning Guide
Tagged: Loss, Grief, Grieving, Coping With Loss, After Death
“First understand that there is no ‘correct’ way to grieve. Grieving is not something you should be expected to simply ‘get over.”
— Seven Ponds, After Death Planning Guide
Tagged: Loss, Grief, Grieving, Coping With Loss, After Death
“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”
— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Tagged: Death, Loss, Coping With Death, Losing A Loved One, After Death, Death & Loss
“we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.”
— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Tagged: Death, Loss, Coping With Death, Losing A Loved One, After Death, Death & Loss
“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.”
— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Tagged: Death, Loss, Coping With Death, Losing A Loved One, After Death, Death & Loss
“People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible.”
— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Tagged: Death, Loss, Coping With Death, Losing A Loved One, After Death, Death & Loss
“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”
— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Tagged: Death, Loss, Coping With Death, Losing A Loved One, After Death, Death & Loss
“Accept that loss is a basic part of our life cycle. Whatever is born must die. Whatever grows must decay. These are universal laws. We tend to forget that these physical bodies are mortal. Everything we see around us will one-day decay and cease to be.”
— Much Loved, Dealing With The Death Of A Loved One
Tagged: Death, Grief, Grieving, Loss, After Death, Losing A Loved One
“[After losing a loved one] you must with emotional energy and reinvest it in other relationships. Many people misunderstand this task and believe it means forgetting about their loved one. They believe that this would be dishonoring their loved one's memory. This task is simply a continuation of the first three tasks. It involves the process of allowing yourself to make relationships with others. It does not mean that you care any less about your loved one or that you will not keep your special memories.”
— Much Loved, Dealing With The Death Of A Loved One
Tagged: Death, Grief, Grieving, Loss, After Death, Losing A Loved One
“Today, 40,000 parents have lost their children. Tomorrow, another 40, 000 parents will lose their children. I am not alone in pain. Departure from the physical body is a natural part of life on earth.”
— Much Loved, Dealing With The Death Of A Loved One
Tagged: Death, Grief, Grieving, Loss, After Death, Losing A Loved One
“My loved one is an eternal, immortal soul who continues to live in another dimension more beautiful than the one in which I currently exist.”
— Much Loved, Dealing With The Death Of A Loved One
Tagged: Death, Grief, Grieving, Loss, After Death, Losing A Loved One
“Death is an Illusion. The soul never dies. We are all souls having a human experience, not the other way around.”
— James Van Praagh, Healing Your Grief After Loss - 4 Things The Dead Want You To Know
Tagged: Death, After Death, Grief, Grieving, Loss, Losing A Loved One
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
— Rumi, via Pinterest
Tagged: Grief, Loss, Losing A Loved One, Death, After Death
“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
— Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground
Tagged: Death, Loss, Grief, Grievig, After Death, Losing A Loved One
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
— Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Tagged: Death, After Death, Losing A Loved One, Loss, Grief
“I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day and through.”
— Billie Holiday, "I'll Be Seeing You"
Tagged: Death, Loss, Losing A Loved One, Grief, After Death, Grieving