Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc. — Meghan O'Rourke Be patient Copy Share Image
A death from a long illness is very different from a sudden death. It gives you time to say goodbye and time… — Meghan O'Rourke Beloved Copy Share Image
Grief is at once a public and a private experience. One's inner, inexpressible disruption cannot be fully realized in one's public persona. — Meghan O'Rourke Disruption Copy Share Image
Loss doesn't feel redeemable. But for me one consoling aspect is the recognition that, in this at least, none of us is… — Meghan O'Rourke Aspect Copy Share Image
The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are… — Meghan O'Rourke Love Copy Share Image
I believe in the importance of individuality, but in the midst of grief I also find myself wanting connection - wanting to… — Meghan O'Rourke Believe Copy Share Image
One word I had throughout the first year and a half of my mother's death was 'unmoored.' I felt that I had… — Meghan O'Rourke Anchors Copy Share Image
I have seen that grief can be very different for different people. While the range of emotions experienced is similar, the way… — Meghan O'Rourke Deals Copy Share Image
I envy my Jewish friends the ritual of saying kaddish - a ritual that seems perfectly conceived, with its built-in support group… — Meghan O'Rourke Devoted Copy Share Image
Grief is a bad moon, a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant, a saboteur who, at the slightest change in… — Meghan O'Rourke Change Copy Share Image
One of the difficulties with grief research is that it risks making certain kinds of grief seem normal and others abnormal -… — Meghan O'Rourke Abnormal Copy Share Image
Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you… — Meghan O'Rourke Death Copy Share Image
“Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. A mother, after… — Meghan O'Rourke Life Copy Share Image
While I did a lot of research, I ended up feeling that the best way to write about grief was to describe… — Meghan O'Rourke Best way Copy Share Image
And after my mother's death I became more open to and empathetic about other people's struggles and losses. — Meghan O'Rourke Death Copy Share Image
My mother never liked Mother's Day. She thought it was a fake holiday dreamed up by Hallmark to commodify deep sentiments that… — Meghan O'Rourke Cards Copy Share Image
There is no single way of grieving. But research suggests that there are some broad similarities among grievers. — Meghan O'Rourke Broads Copy Share Image
For sure, the funeral industry seems intensely cynical to me and I don't think it is HELPING people mourn. — Meghan O'Rourke Cynical Copy Share Image
Funerals cost so much money, and are likely to be an additional source of stress in this recession - it's sad that… — Meghan O'Rourke Approach Copy Share Image
We have an idea - a very modern idea - that dying is undignified. But I think this is because we have… — Meghan O'Rourke Body Copy Share Image
All love stories are tales of beginnings. When we talk about falling in love, we go to the beginning, to pinpoint the… — Meghan O'Rourke Beginnings Copy Share Image
But there is a discomfort that surrounds grief. It makes even the most well-intentioned people unsure of what to say. And so… — Meghan O'Rourke Death Copy Share Image
This is part of the complexity of grief: A piece of you recognizes it is an extreme state, an altered state, yet… — Meghan O'Rourke Altered Copy Share Image
What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came… — Meghan O'Rourke Belief Copy Share Image
Grief is characterized much more by waves of feeling that lessen and reoccur, it's less like stages and more like different states… — Meghan O'Rourke Death Copy Share Image
My whole life, I had been taught to read and study, to seek understanding in knowledge of history, of cultures. — Meghan O'Rourke Culture Copy Share Image
What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport. — Meghan O'Rourke Complicated Copy Share Image
One of the things about grief is that it can bring a deeper perspective into your life; in the end, it has,… — Meghan O'Rourke Death Copy Share Image
A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life.… — Meghan O'Rourke Entry Copy Share Image
When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try… — Meghan O'Rourke Found Copy Share Image
There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self… — Meghan O'Rourke Death Copy Share Image
