Attending a funeral would leave the average person insane, if they truly believed that sooner or later they are also going to die.
Seeing his daughter slowly die, coupled with his infinite sadness and misery, the clockmaker becomes a recluse to the tower of the castle and begins to build something behind closed doors, not even his daughter knows what he’s up to. For five years, she only sees him briefly at meal-times before locking himself up in the tower once again...""...Did he have a bathroom in the tower?""Yes, Jack. A big one! En-suite! Power-shower and spa! Where was I!?
I have died at the ripe age of twenty.Smile, for the world didn't get a chance to disappoint me.I have died at the mature age of ninety.Smile, for my life was more than satisfying.I have died suddenly—out of the blue.Smile, for I didn't have to fall ill before you.I have died from a long illness.Smile, for I had the chance to say goodbye.I did not want to leave this Earth.But smile, for I am still here among you.Why are you crying?Can you not see I am smiling?
There are endings. There are beginnings. Sometimes they coincide, with the ending of one thing marking the beginning of another. But sometimes there is simply a long space after an ending, a time when it seems everything else has ended and nothing else can ever begin.
I want to drown in my tears,And my tears are my prayers.
She wasn’t crying at all. This was what scared him the most. Where had she locked up the things he’d seen her feeling that day when she heard? She wasn’t that big a girl to hold all of it—to hold her brother’s life and his death inside of her. To hold all his long-limbed raging tidal motion and all the loss of that.
Everything had shattered. The fact that it was all still there — the walls and the chairs and the children’s pictures on the walls — meant nothing. Every atom of it had been blasted apart and reconstituted in an instant, and its appearance of permanence and solidity was laughable; it would dissolve at a touch, for everything was suddenly tissue-thin and friable.
Live life so well that, even if you die, the empty seats behind you will tell the story that, "yea, this soul did what God sent him/her to do". Give life and hope into your family, village, community, country, continent and the world at large. You can do it!
There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I'm so angry and bitter. But it doesn't last too long. Then I get up and say, 'I want to live..' 'So far, I've been able to do it. Will I be able to continue? I don't know. But I'm betting on myself I will.' Koppel seemed extremely taken with Morrie. He asked about the humility that death induced.
Might there come a timeWhen we stand over a graveAnd mourn ourselves?Mourn the past, a previous life?Shall we weep for the passing of time?Shall we grieve for unfulfilled dreams?In my naivety; in my beliefIn immortal youth, I sleep walk through life.Someone... wake me up.Please.Wake me up.
Excerpt: Paradox – Bound By Blood. The hands on a clock never falter, not for a second. One day ends; and a new begins. If there was one thing on this earth that could be counted on, it was that. Time never paused to mourn the dead. That particular privilege is allotted to the living. It is for the survivor to mourn, bury the dead, and leave the rest to the earth. That is the way of it – the way of death - and the misery it leaves behind.
The book was turned to the page with Anne Frank's name, but what got me about it was the fact that right beneath her name there were four Aron Franks. FOUR. Four Aron Franks without museums, without historical markers, without anyone to mourn them. I silently resolved to remember and pray for the four Aron Franks as long as I was around.