After Annie

by Anna Quindlen

The problem with crying was that it made her believe it was all true, what was happening.

Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason.

Don’t tell her that the thing about people saying you’ve lost her is that deep down it makes you think that if you tried hard enough you could find her.

He had to make a memory person because he was never, ever again going to see, speak with, hold, the real one. It seemed so obvious that that would be the case when someone died, but he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around it, that he would never see Annie again, that they were in the kitchen together one winter evening and then she was gone for good. The foreverness of it shocked him every single day.

She was one of a kind. You just remember that. Most boys don’t have a mother who is one of a kind. It’s very hard to lose her, but it’s really something to have had her. Really something. You just tell yourself that.”

“One need never be ashamed or afraid of grieving. Those who do not grieve cannot feel.”

You need to bring your wife back to life for her children. You need to let them know that you will never forget her, and that you will help them never forget her, too. You need to let them know that sadness shouldn’t lead to silence. You need to find a way to do that every day.