Junie

by Erin Crosby Eckstine

‘Looking for comfort in the past is like looking for a needle in a haystack; you can search forever and see a whole bunch of things that almost look like that needle you’re missing, but the truth is, you’re never going to find it and you’ll drive yourself mad trying. Best to leave that old needle and get on with the needles you got.’ You understand?”

Grief will make you want to waste every breath on prayers that don’t get answered. Use that breath on the people you still got.”

“Baby, everything in this life ends, most times in a bad way. We got as much say in that as we got in the color of the sky. Uncle George was my choice, and I don’t regret loving him for one minute. It’s what we can choose that makes this life special.”

She told me that when you first lose somebody, the grief feels like the strongest tea you’ve ever tasted, so bitter and sharp you don’t think you’ll ever be able to swallow. But that every day, another drop of water falls into that cup, and it gets a little easier to taste. That bitterness, that pain, it don’t ever go away or get smaller. But it does fade.”