Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral QUOTES

2 " Family does not mean people with the same last name or the same DNA. It means people who care about you, who you trust, who you care about--people you can count on. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

4 " The grieving, she knows, never ends, and all that remains is the miracle of love. And she holds onto that miracle as if to save her life. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

6 " Worry and life have kept her thin- you can stay thin lifting sick and dying people, driving to the hospital, and planning funerals. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

8 " Once," Balinda begins softly, "when I was in the emergency room with my mother they brought in a murderer who had been shot and was dying, right there in front of us. I watched as the nurse touched his face and reassured him and I could not believe they were being so nice to him."

"What happened?" Jill asked.

"My mother rose up, took my arm, gripped it as if she was a weight lifter and said, 'he was a beautiful baby once and his mother loved him'. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

10 " There are so many things to grieve....All the dogs & cats & birds & snakes we have loved & lost, & old lovers, but what else? ... it took me forever to see that one of them was my own daughter, my baby, a young woman I thought of only as a girl, a child, & there she was, suddenly a woman, & I felt this ache gnaw at me as if I hadn't eaten in a year. ... I stood there watching my daughter gesture & move & laugh with the grace of a grown-up, & I just started crying like a baby. It wasn't unlike the same type of sorrow we all feel when we realize something we once had that was very precious is not longer there. That it is forever lost, changed, deceased. Like a baby, gone, except in your memory. ... My own daughter is now a woman. I get it. Another passage, another form of loss, another reason to grieve, another part of this life process. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

12 " This dying & grief stuff knows no boundaries. It doesn't matter if the pain of loss is for a baby, an elderly parent, someone who drops dead at 30, the sorrow & grief doesn't change because of age. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

14 " Her Mother's obituary... her last physical link to the woman who helped for the soul of who she was to become, who she remains, who she will always be. She has read the obituary so many times that it looks as if the piece of paper has been through the wash a dozen times. She wonders if she will ever stop reading it. She holds it, as she held her Mother, finally held her Mother once she crossed over the threshold of adulthood herself, & realized the power of a Mother's love for a child. The sacrifices her Mother made that she never appreciated, & that great gift of patience that can only be learned by becoming a mother. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

16 " No matter how together we are, no matter how many friends or kids or partners or dogs or goats we have, there are always moments where we not only feel alone, but lonely. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

18 " It's going to be ok, you know that now, don't you? I know there will be something else, but I also know that it will be ok. It has to be ok. "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral

20 " Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Florida Keys. New York City. The North Shore of Lake Superior. A small island close to Seattle. Those "

― Kris Radish , Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral