40 Comforting Quotes To Help You Heal After The Loss Of A Child
Coping with loss can feel neverending.
YourTango For a parent, losing a child is the most devastating and painful experience, one that no parent should ever have to go through — and yet, some have to.
Up until recently, there hasn't been a name for those who endure this loss. Spouses left behind are called widows and widowers, but vilomah is the word for a parent who loses a child.
The grief that comes from a loss this big seems unbearable. It feels nearly impossible to talk to others about what you’re going through. A part of you may not want to talk about it, and yet, you know one day you will have to.
How do you talk about something so heavy? How will anyone understand the loss that you’ve endured unless they’ve gone through it it themselves?
Death is always traumatic, and it wakes us up to how truly fragile life can be. The grieving process is difficult, and perhaps the loss will never fully leave you, but you need to remember that it is possible to keep going through tough times like this.
When the pain is too much, these losing a child quotes will allow you to grieve and deal with the wounds at your own pace.
Moving on from an experience like this can be hard, but we’ve gathered these inspirational quotes that will help you stay strong. They can also serve as comforting words to say to grieving parents and others who are impacted by loss.
Sympathy quotes like “Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity," and, "Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love," are fitting things to say to someone who lost a child suddenly or to write in a sympathy card.
These grief quotes show that love lives on in the wake of loss through beautiful memories.
1. “It’s a kind of tired that sleep can’t fix.”
2. "Grief does not change you. It reveals you." — John Green
3. “Tears are words that need to be written.” ― Paulo Coelho
4. "They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite." — Cassandra Clare
5. “You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair.” — Eva Ibbotson
6. "Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”― Jamie Anderson
7. “The song is ended but the melody lingers on...” — Irving Berlin
8."Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place." — Sarah Dessen
9. “Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity.” — Terri Guillemets
10. "Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief." — Marcus Tullius Cicero
11. "Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” — Rumi
12. "When one person is missing the whole world seems empty." — Pat Schweibert
13. “The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you’re faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking.” — James Patterson
14. "We all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive, to find a silver lining in the clouds. But I believe there is real value in just standing there, being still, being sad." — John Green
15. “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world — the company of those who have known suffering.” — Helen Keller
16. "The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude." — Thornton Wilder
17. “It is the capacity to feel consuming grief and pain and despair that also allows me to embrace love and joy and beauty with my whole heart. I must let it all in.” — Anna White
18. "Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people." — Orson Scott Card
19. “The few certainties in our existences are pain, death and bereavement.” — Jane Wilson-Howarth
20. "Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds its way back to you." — Ranata Suzuki
21. “We never truly get over a loss, but we can move forward and evolve from it.” — Elizabeth Berrien
22. "Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love."
23. “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” — Emily Dickinson
24. "It's possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief... lessens. It may not go away completely, but after a while it's not so overwhelming." — Nicholas Sparks
25. “I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.” ― Mitch Albom
26. "What cannot be said will be wept." — Sappho
27. “Grief is the price we pay for love.” — Queen Elizabeth II
28. "He said, 'One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.'" — Frederick Buechner
29. “While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.” ― Samuel Johnson
30. "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." — C.S.Lewis
31. “If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.” — Moliere
32. "The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to." — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
33. “Tears are the silent language of grief.” — Voltaire
34. "Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them." — Leo Tolstoy
35. “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” — Washington Irving
36. "Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it." — "Lemony Snicket"
37. “Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.” — Marcel Proust
38. "You were unsure which pain is worse — the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will."
39. “Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.” — Anne Roiphe
40. "This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect." — Jodi Picoult
41. "What we don't need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human." — Brené Brown
Helen Luc is a frequent contributor to YourTango. Her writing focuses on love, relationships, and pop-culture topics.