Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate how you'll feel afterward. People will tell you; a few may be close to right, none exactly right.
Interpretation
The emotional aftermath of losing a loved one is unpredictable and unique to each individual.
This quote speaks to the complex and personal nature of grief, particularly in the context of losing a mother or someone deeply loved. It emphasizes that while others may attempt to provide guidance on what to expect after such a loss, their insights will invariably fall short of capturing the true emotional experience, which is deeply individual and often surprising.
In practice
During a memorial speech, you might use this quote to convey the unpredictability of mourning.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.
It’s really hard to hate someone for being different when you’re too busy laughing together.
If you want to understand your parents more, get them to talk about their own childhood; and if you listen with compassion, you will learn where their fears and rigid patterns come from. Those people who 'did all that stuff to you' were just as frightened and scared as you are.
Sex is difficult, yes. But they are difficult things with which we have been charged...If you only recognize this and manage out of yourself, out of your own nature and ways, out of your own experience and childhood and strength to achieve a relation to sex wholly your own (not influenced by convention and custom) then you need no longer be afraid of losing yourself and becoming unworthy of your best possession.
As a species of animal that evolved to make connections and work together, it feels strange to suppress our desire for contact. People enjoy touching each other, and find joy in seeing each other in person - but now we have to keep our physical distance.
At any age, we struggle with intimacy. When you're a kid, you think, 'I won't have that problem. I'll have sex whenever I want when I'm a grown-up!' And then, somehow, it doesn't quite turn out that way, and it's so surprising to people that connection remains so challenging even when you're married.
When I think about [characters], I like to think of them in their relationships to each other. In the same way, I think that's how humans are ultimately defined. We are our relationships to one another. And a lot of what's interesting about us happens in the context of other people.
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