Life and Other Near-Death Experiences Quotes

“Life is devastating, if only in its limited run; but it’s incredibly good, too.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“It takes guts to stop fretting about the unknown and concentrate on the present moment.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“It’s permanence that distinguishes grief from other emotional pain. The unfixable nature of never—that’s what makes it so terrible to bear.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“There was nothing I could do to change what had happened, but I could not stop myself from desperately wishing I could rewind my life and do it all over in a way that was the exact opposite of my past.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“But here before me was a good man. It struck me that I had yet to hear him say a negative word about another person. Even if he was describing a terrible action, like his father’s inability to care for his family in the way that they needed, he spoke in terms of the event, rather than blaming the person. I loved people like this, and encountered so very few.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“in order to function, most people have to ignore reality, or at least most of it.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Yet I’ve come to understand that the way I will truly honor my mother’s memory is not with a big act, but through my daily choices: to be compassionate with myself, even when my will is weak and my body fails me; to give myself freely to those I love, even when it means my heart may be broken; and to live fully and completely while I have the chance—just as my mother did.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“It takes guts to stop fretting about the unknown and concentrate on the present moment. That’s what matters, anyway.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“His theory is that in order to function, most people have to ignore reality, or at least most of it. Otherwise, all of the horrible things in life—child slavery, acts of war, the pesticides jam-packed into every other bite of food you put in your mouth, knowing that you’re a day closer to dying when you open your eyes each morning—would be so overwhelming that no one would ever get out of bed. “But for you, Libby,” said Paul, “the whole world is filled with kittens and rainbows and happy endings. It’s very cute and probably helps you sleep at night.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“I’ve come to understand that the way I will truly honor my mother’s memory is not with a big act, but through my daily choices: to be compassionate with myself, even when my will is weak and my body fails me; to give myself freely to those I love, even when it means my heart may be broken; and to live fully and completely while I have the chance—just as my mother did.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“I wanted to live into my seventies or eighties or however old these two were, so I could tell long-winded tales to my cousins (who I technically couldn’t stand, but that was but a minor detail to be hammered out over the next four decades of this alternate life I was wishing for myself). I wanted a chance to be wrinkled and deaf and without a care in the world, confident I had lived fully and completely in the way that only the old can.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Don’t make a bad decision just because you’re afraid of being afraid.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“I didn’t want to sing. I didn’t want to gorge myself on imitation dairy or put on cowboy boots. But if I could just ignore the world for a month or two, I was confident that I would eventually be able to fully immerse myself in life’s little pleasures while I still had a life left to live.   If”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“It’s permanence that distinguishes grief from other emotional pain.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Thank you for your awful, terrible, heartbreaking timing. Because without it, I would have never ended up in Vieques, where I would finally—dear God, finally—get properly laid before it was too late.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Sometimes, when I was feeling especially blue, I would imagine what it would have been like if I’d been a different age when my mother died. At ten, I was old enough to understand the terrible thing that had happened to us, but too young to have soaked up so many of the details that I, as an adult, longed to know about her and her life. Now the little I did remember was fading with time.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“This isn’t a fight; it’s a tough thing to talk about. There’s a difference.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Your mother’s not gone, Libby. You’ll see her again one day.” I clung to this belief, even as I cursed its complete and utter inability to offer real comfort. I did not want to hear it, even from my own husband. Nor did I want to hear about God having a plan, or all things happening for a reason, or any other number of Hallmark sentiments that pinged against my heart like pebbles on a thin windowpane.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Love guts you, then saunters away as the vultures swoop down to steal what’s left. I knew that. It had been mere weeks since Tom had reminded me.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Tom, Tom, Tom,” I said, fingering the top of the knife bar, which was dusty; I’d take care of that later. “You lost the right to ask for sympathy about three minutes ago. Now get out of our home before I stab you again.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“She was lovely. And I knew as I reached down to touch her softly, one more time, that anything that happened next in life simply could not be as unbearable as this good-bye.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“His theory is that in order to function, most people have to ignore reality, or at least most of it. Otherwise, all of the horrible things in life—child slavery, acts of war, the pesticides jam-packed into every other bite of food you put in your mouth, knowing that you’re a day closer to dying when you open your eyes each morning—would be so overwhelming that no one would ever get out of bed.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“to be compassionate with myself, even when my will is weak and my body fails me; to give myself freely to those I love, even when it means my heart may be broken; and to live fully and completely while I have the chance—just as my mother did.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“But when she was lucid, I snatched up that fool’s gold like it would buy me forever, assuring myself that she was going to pull through. I put my hand over hers and sang as though time was a suggestion, and the end a choice.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Laura tells herself, This is now, and feels happy because the now could not be forgotten as it was happening. “Isn’t that wonderful?” my mother said to me after she finished reading it. Her arm was around me, and she squeezed me tight. “This is now, Libby Lou. And it’s all ours.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“I guess you could argue that time makes a lot of things more attractive.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“And I knew as I reached down to touch her softly, one more time, that anything that happened next in life simply could not be as unbearable as this good-bye.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“Libby, you and Paul are happy, functioning people who have lived, and loved, and made the world a little bit better by being in it. That was your mama’s exact definition of okay.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“My therapist says that part of my need to have things seem perfect stems from having a childhood where everything was pretty much the exact opposite,” said Tom.”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“If cancer was a gift, I wanted to return it. I didn’t need a fast-acting tumor to remind me about the fleeting nature of life:”
― Camille Pagán, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences