A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration Quotes

“There are words like ‘orphan’, ‘widow’ and ‘widower’ in all languages. But there is no word in any language to describe a parent who loses a child. How does one describe the pain of ‘ultimate bereavement’! (Page 50)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Twilight, the only time of the day when the light and dark meet and become one. The bright powerful light of the day, calmly surrenders before the engulfing duskiness of the night. And the dense whelming darkness of the night yields before the surreal dawning saffron of the morning. The only two moments of the day that absolve the difference between ‘dark and light’. (Page 71)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“The morning’s splendour is conceived in the dark womb of night. A truth … we all know and believe. Yet a truth, that is most difficult to live and endure when one is in that dark womb. Alive and breathing … but inert, vulnerable, and ‘in waiting’. Witnessing but not conscious, wakeful but not awake. (Page 2)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Forgetting is not forgetting
Forgetting is ‘Letting things pass’

When Existence opens up to Essence
And rises above and beyond
The path of Transcendence opens

Love goes beyond Death
The body disappears
The person lives
In Love

And in this Love
Remembrance is born
(Page 91)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Twilight ...
Say, who you are !!
The dusk before the night
Or the dawn before the light
(Page 73)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“One is in 'Waiting'
Even after it's over
Grief comes to stay
Never up for closure
...
There is no escape ever
One is always yearning
Grief envelops those
Left behind in 'waiting'
...
‘Staying stuck’ in pain
Hiding deep in the heart
'Let go' ! Yes, but how
To make a new start
...
One has to live in the
Dark blind ‘Black-hole’
Until Light would grace
Rekindling a 'Whole'
(Page 49)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Nature does not abandon us. Rather, it helps us in accepting our loss, grief and pain. It stays with us, even cries with us. It gifts us openings, may be more than once, to heal, transcend and re-emerge. (Page xii)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Lament invoked love.
Woe invoked wonder.
Grief invoked grace.
Cry invoked celebration.
(Page 80)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Letting myself fall wasn't easy. It wasn't hard either. It was a calling that I had to honour. I did honour. I took a plunge into my dark abyss. I faced my grief, my fear, my sadness, my loneliness, my anguish, myself. (Page 78)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Death
It does not happen to the dead alone
Those left behind, die too
In parts that would never heal and come back to life
(Page 14)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Bereavement, despair, ache, yearning happen to all. We all bear the pain of grief. We all take them in our own ways. And we are all blessed with the grace to transcend. (Page xii)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“The crumbling under the ‘cold corpse’
The deadness of ‘mortal separation’
The moaning wails of ‘mourning’
The push to ‘perform rituals’
The spectacle of ‘sorrow’
The goriness of ‘grief’
And
The ‘mercilessness’ of the ‘merciful’

Who knows … ‘what’ and ‘why’
Who would ever want to know
(Page 34)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“We are generally not programmed to imagine death, to handle death, to absorb grief, at least not in the immediacy of things, definitely not when the ‘thing’ has happened to another person.”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Grief
You plunge one in many emotions
Betrayal, Despair, Depression, Fear, Anger
Grief
You are more difficult to face than Death
Grief
Please let my faith stay stronger than you
Grief
I so wish you eventually lose out to love
(Page 58)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Parent
Nothing … No One
Prepares a parent to raise the child
Nothing … No One
Can ever prepare a parent to bear the loss of child”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Cold, still and merciless
Death comes visiting
With absolute finality
(Page 24)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“Twilight …
Not just a metaphor
The metaphor of the ‘spirit’
The confluence of life and death
The celestial dance of existential and essential
(Page 75)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“The dawn broke, but the Sun did not rise that morning. It was a morning of ‘mourning’. (Page 24)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“The Source …
Who are You
Where lay your path
Why be on your journey
...
The Source …
Your marvel amazes
Your mystique invokes
Your magnificence entrances
(Page 88)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration

“I came to understand the most intriguing irony of life, that the most intimate partner of life is death.
(Page 94)”
― Neena Verma, A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration