David Kessler Quotes

Maturity is when you accept the fact that two contradictory ideas can exist together.

You have to cry your own tears because no one can do it for you.

Meaning doesn't require understanding. It is not necessary to understand why someone died in order to find meaning.

Living is different from being alive. We come out of loss alive, but we're not living yet.

Years before we knew how to make it happen, President Kennedy said we would go to the moon. Louise Hay talked about the importance of our words to create actions. You can't just wake up and see if today is the day you'll act. Yoda from Star Wars was correct: "Do or do not, there is no try." Even a small decision makes a difference.

We live in a fix-it society with the technology to repair many broken things at our fingertips. We forget that we've all been deliberately designed to "end" one day. When that ending happens, there's nothing to fix. . . This is not giving up, or giving in. It's acceptance.

grief is optional in this lifetime. Yes, it's true. You don't have to experience grief, but you can only avoid it by avoiding love. Love and grief are inextricably intertwined.

William James, who was a professor at Harvard from 1872 to 1907 as well as a lecturer at numerous universities, is often referred to as "the father of American psychology." Yet in his lifetime, he was ridiculed for forming The American Society for Psychical Research. Unfortunately, we have a long-standing practice of criticizing those who look outside the traditional medical box.

wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. Lose your child and you're… nothing. — Tennessee Williams

I explained that there were macro forms of grief and micro forms of grief. In other words, big and little losses, and everything in between.

It helps to say, "I'm unhappy today," and leave it at that.

We are a grief-illiterate society.

It may feel like all meaning left with the person you lost, but that is not true. You can continue to connect meaningfully with those who are still living, and you can form new connections, too. Those connections do not diminish your love for the person who died. They will only enhance it.

Death ends a life, but not our relationship, our love, or our hope.

Your loss is not a test, a lesson, something to handle, a gift, or a blessing. Loss is simply what happens to you in life. Meaning is what you make happen Only you can find your own meaning Meaningful connections will heal painful memories