Cripples, bastards and broken things

If you ever get the chance to love a person who knows grief, do not let them go You see, the thing about grief is that it’s not exclusive it consumes life and it taints everything a little grey It won’t hesitate to remind you that everyone and everything you love will disappear some day But I’ve found that the people who carry grief love with a fierceness that no one else knows  They understand what’s at stake because they’ve had to let someone go  So they remember the little things and they show up when it counts They know that life is rare you won’t have to spell it out So don’t take for granted the people who know loss for they know more about love because they know what it costs - Whitney Hanson

 “I don’t need to provide amusement or enjoyment. I don’t need to receive any amusement or enjoyment. I’m completely fine with that. Because no amount of good is worth how terrible this feels. It’s just a complete waste of fucking time.”  - Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto

To most people, Hans Hubermann was barely visible. An un-special person. Certainly, his painting skills were excellent. His musical ability was better than average. Somehow, though, and I’m sure you’ve met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of a line. He was always just there. Not noticeable. Not important or particularly valuable. The frustration of that appearance, as you can imagine, was its complete misleadence, let’s say. There most definitely was value in him, and it did not go unnoticed by Liesel Meminger. (The human child—so much cannier at times than the stupefyingly ponderous adult.) She saw it immediately. His manner. The quiet air around him. When he turned the light on in the small, callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father’s eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann...

"Good morning. It's an honor to be here. The poet Elizabeth Bishoponce wrote: 'the Art of Losing isn't hard to master: so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.' I'm not a poet, I am a person living with Early Onset Alzheimer's, and as that person I find myself learning the art of losing every day. Losing my bearings, losing objects, losing sleep, but mostly losing memories... All my life I've accumulated memories - they've become, in a way, my most precious possessions. The night I met my husband, the first time I held my textbook in my hands. Having children, making friends, traveling the world. Everything I accumulated in life, everything I've worked so hard for - now all that is being ripped away. As you can imagine, or as you know, this is hell. But it gets worse. Who can take us seriously when we are so far from who we once were? Our strange behavior and fumbled sentences change other's perce...

O nosso avô era e será eternamente, uma das nossas pessoas preferidas. Bondade, era a maior característica do avô e uma daquelas coisas que segura uma família de uma maneira por vezes imperceptível.  O avô nunca levantava a voz e raramente se zangava, no entanto quando ele queria falar, toda a família se sentava em silêncio para ouvir.  Se isso não é amor, eu não sei o que é. Dizem que nunca temos tempo suficiente com quem amamos mas o nosso avô tinha uma percepção diferente.  Se houve coisa que não nos faltou foi tempo.  Ele nunca deixou que um almoço de família demorasse menos de duas horas, que um abraço demorasse menos de 30 segundos ou que qualquer história não demorasse pelo menos o triplo a contar do que qualquer outra pessoa.  O nosso avô demorou o seu tempo a amar-nos e nunca o fez com pressa.  Vamos lembrar-nos eternamente de ti nas piadas que contavas, nos dias de sol na praia e em cada sorriso da avó. Querido avô, conhecer-te e amar-te foi o mai...

I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour and my memories of them were the only things that sustained me, and my only real happy times. I was a singer, not a very popular one, who once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but upon an unfortunate series of events, saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again sparkling and broken. But I didn’t really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is. When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I had been living, they asked me why. But there’s no use in talking to people who have a home, they have no idea what it’s like to seek safety in other people, for home to be wherever you lie your hea...