The Second Sister Quotes

“It's more like she left some of herself behind in the walls and the floors and the books, like there's something she wants to tell me.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“death has a way of re-ranking your priorities and clearing your mind of debris. Maybe that is part of its purpose. On the other hand, maybe death is just death.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“We say that we mourn the dead, and there is some truth in that. We lament the flower frozen in full bloom, cut off at the moment of promise, or another long wilted, whose slow fading and drawn-out, painful diminishment cast a shadow over a vibrant and glorious past. And yet. Once the eyes are closed and the heart is stilled, we come to understand that the worst of the pain has passed. For them. The dead have no more use for pain, for memory or regret. Regret is for the living. And so when we stand at the bedside, the graveside, the casket, our mourning is less for the beloved departed than it is for ourselves. We mourn the missed opportunity, the word unspoken or spoken in haste, the hole in our lives and the unsettling of our souls, our own disappointments and the loss of innocence. We gaze upon the stillness that is unending and feel our self-importance crack and the myth of our immortality smash. We stare upon the face of death to see ourselves more clearly, to satisfy our curiosity, to make peace with the inescapable. We hold our breath, try to imagine what it would be like never to take another and what the departed know now that we don’t. We try to conjure what the life we have left would look like if such knowledge were ours. We try to imagine ourselves kind and expansive and giving, balanced and patient, more honest, more thankful, more peaceful, content with what we have, mindless of what we have not. We imagine ourselves happy. For a moment, we believe we can be. And then, because we can’t help ourselves, we breathe and, breathing, are reminded of the many other things we cannot help. The faith of a moment fades and hope is replaced by the intimate knowledge of our imperfections. Lonely, weeping, we stand with our feet anchored to the ground, watching our better angels fly above us and beyond us to time out of mind, and we mourn.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“I wouldn’t want to live there, but Washington was a nice place to visit, and that’s what I intended to do: see every single monument and museum, just like the rest of the tourists, marveling at our history and taking pride in the miracle of our democracy, just like the rest of my countrymen. I couldn’t wait.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“I would never again wake in the darkness to the sound of my sister’s voice, and experienced the stab of loss anew, a vacancy in my center.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Once the eyes are closed and the heart is stilled, we come to understand that the worst of the pain has passed. For them. The dead have no more use for pain, for memory or regret. Regret is for the living.
And so when we stand at the bedside, the graveside, the casket, our mourning is less for the beloved departed than it is for ourselves. We mourn the missed opportunity, the word unspoken or spoken in haste, the hole in our lives and the unsettling of our souls, our own disappointments and the loss of innocence.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Once the eyes are closed and the heart is stilled, we come to understand that the worst of the pain has passed. For them. The dead have no more use for pain, for memory or regret. Regret is for the living.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“we should work to live, not live to work.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Lucy Toomey, go and sin no more! Be joyful! Be grateful! Forgive others as you have been forgiven! Everyone—Peter and Celia and Alice, and even your mother and father. Let the past be past and the dead rest in peace. Live a life that is worthy of this love so freely given,” he commanded, then repeated the words of absolution. “Amen,” I whispered and wiped my eyes one last time. “Thank you, Father.” “Lucy? One more thing. Tonight before you go to bed, and every night hereafter, get down on your knees and pray, pour out your heart to God and let him pour out his heart upon you.” He smiled. “That’s not a penance, my child. It’s a gift.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“If there was just something I could do, some way to make up for—” He sighed. “Lucy, what penance could anyone require of you that you haven’t already laid upon yourself? Almighty God chooses to pardon you; what right have you to reject that pardon?”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Sometimes, when a person dies young, her survivors unconsciously revise her history, choosing to recall only what was good, the acts of kindness and inclinations to nobility, beatifying her memory until she becomes in death what she never was in life: a saint. But that wasn’t what happened to Alice, not exactly.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Words of contrition I’d learned as a child emerged from my memory. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault . . . For all I have done and all I have left undone . . . Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“I bent my head over the still form in the casket, brushed my fingers across the brown curls spread across the satin pillow. Her face was so still and pale, an expression carved from ivory, like the face of someone who reminded me of someone I used to know.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“We say that we mourn the dead, and there is some truth in that. We lament the flower frozen in full bloom, cut off at the moment of promise, or another long wilted, whose slow fading and drawn-out, painful diminishment cast a shadow over a vibrant and glorious past. And yet. Once the eyes are closed and the heart is stilled, we come to understand that the worst of the pain has passed. For them. The dead have no more use for pain, for memory or regret. Regret is for the living. And so when we stand at the bedside, the graveside, the casket, our mourning is less for the beloved departed than it is for ourselves. We mourn the missed opportunity, the word unspoken or spoken in haste, the hole in our lives and the unsettling of our souls, our own disappointments and the loss of innocence. We gaze upon the stillness that is unending and feel our self-importance crack and the myth of our immortality smash. We stare upon the face of death to see ourselves more clearly, to satisfy our curiosity, to make peace with the inescapable.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“We say that we mourn the dead, and there is some truth in that. We lament the flower frozen in full bloom, cut off at the moment of promise, or another long wilted, whose slow fading and drawn-out, painful diminishment cast a shadow over a vibrant and glorious past.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Washington—the city with the largest per capita population of pompous, self-absorbed horse’s asses in these United States.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister

“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you. —Genesis 28:15”
― Marie Bostwick, The Second Sister