P. Kirby’s Reviews > A Million Junes > Status Update

"I love my sister, and until I die, I'll never stop missing her. But I want to be good to the people I haven't lost yet. I want to live, with you."

"June O'Donnell, I like that you know you can't fix the thing that hurts in me. And that you understand it gets better but you never stop missing people. I like that you know no human being will ever make it okay that you lost another one."

You can clutch one terrible Moment or experience all the rest. Your life is slipping past in brilliant little bits, and I know it feels as though you're holding on to him, as though opening your hands is letting him slip away." [...] "But when Moments pass and crumble, they become seeds. They grow into new trees. And I promise you, he'll be in every new leaf. He will never be far from you."

"Letting go is not forgetting. It's opening you eyes to the good that grew from the bad, the life that blooms from decay."

Abe studies her, momentarily forgetting the breeze, the water, their nakedness. He reaches out, and she does too. They look at their entwined fingers with breathless wonder, as if watching the earth's foundations being laid.

"Marta Griggs didn't believe me," I told him. "Even though her family believes there used to be a magic garden and a snake slithered into it and spread evil."

His hands stop tracing idle circles on my back. "I think once you've felt grief, it's hard not to catch someone else's. Especially when the person grieving is someone you love."

It's almost a relief. Because if all of us are going to someday lose the people we love most, or be lost by them, then what is there to do but live?

"And then here is this person looking at you and dramatically murmuring, I'm sorry for your loss. And you have to look at them and hope your eyes aren't saying, Don't be too sorry. You're next."

"But not because I hate being pitied. I do, but it's more than that. When people pity you, it's like they honestly don't realize the exact same thing's coming for them. And then I feel embarrassed and uncomfortable and have to pity them, because, like do you not realize it's always someone's turn?"