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41 " This flu is like a black shroud that has been flung across everything that breathes under the canopy of heaven, and if you could stand back far enough, you wouldn’t see all the people it touches, only the immense length and breadth of its expanse. "
― Susan Meissner , As Bright as Heaven
42 " Don't talk to me about fate, I wanted to say to Dora. Fate is just another word for saying we're all powerless. Me. Mama. Papa. Maggie. All of us. Love something long enough and true enough and fate will tear it right out of your hands if it chooses, and there's nothing you can do about it. "
43 " I had no idea the gap between earth and heaven is narrow, no wider than a jump over a brook. I’d always thought heaven was so far from the living, no one could measure its distance from earth. Even the wisest person ever born couldn’t look up at the night sky through the most powerful telescope and catch a glimpse of heaven, it was that far off. "
44 " There is only the stunningly fragile human body, a holy creation capable of loving with such astonishing strength but which is weak to the curses of a fallen world. We are like butterflies, delicate and wonderful, here on earth for only a brilliant moment and then away we fly. Death is appointed to merely close the door to our suffering and open wide the gate to Paradise. "
45 " Heaven is just on the other side of waking . . . I can feel the canopy lifting, and I am not afraid . . . Look! Can you see it? It’s so beautiful! Look! So beautiful! "
46 " Everyone I knew - including myself - had to scramble to make sense of what the flu and the war had taken from us. Millions upon millions of people had died around the globe from the flu, far more than in the war itself. The simple reclaiming of delight and goodness and joy had been a staggering endeavor that took place inside our minds, in the tangles of neurons that have always distinguished us from brutes and beasts. Our injuries were hidden deep within our psyches. That was where we needed the balm that would heal us. "
47 " There’s always a way to make something better, even if it means sweeping up the broken pieces and starting all over. That’s how we keep moving, keep breathing, keep opening our eyes every morning, even when the only thing we know for sure is that we’re still alive. "
48 " We are, all of us, living out the stories of our lives. Each of our stories will end, in time, but meanwhile, we fill the pages of our existence with all the love we can, for as long as we can. This is how we make a life. "
49 " My weaker sex is still believed by most to be highly susceptible to fits and hysteria. I, being a woman, had better odds of becoming a future mental patient than of becoming a psychiatrist. "
50 " Everyone is calling it the Spanish flu, even though it didn’t originate in Spain. No one is sure where it came from. Spain has been the first to speak openly about it in its newspapers. "
51 " Home isn’t a place where everything stays the same; it’s a place where you are safe and loved despite nothing staying the same. "
52 " Death is not our foe. There is no foe. There is only the stunningly fragile human body, a holy creation capable of loving with such astonishing strength but which is weak to the curses of a fallen world. It is the frailty of flesh and blood that causes us to succumb to forces greater than ourselves. We are like butterflies, delicate and wonderful, here on earth for only a brilliant moment and then away we fly. Death is appointed merely to close the door to our suffering and open wide the gate to Paradise. If we were made of stone or iron, we would be impervious to disease and injury and disaster, but then we could not give love and receive love, could we? We’d be unable to feel anything at all, and surely incapable of spreading our wings and flying. . . . "
53 " I sat there thinking that if God could split an entire sea in half so a million Hebrews could walk across dry land, couldn’t he stop a little germ? "
54 " These things keep me close to Mama, close even to that part of her I hadn’t yet come to fully know because I was too young and we simply ran out of time. "
55 " Maybe this is what losing a child does to you. It peels off the top layer of who you are, like a snake shedding its skin, and underneath is new skin, and because it’s new, it’s not the same. "
56 " guess our eyes don’t change much from when we were young. Perhaps it’s just how we see things that changes. "
57 " Death is not our foe. There is no foe. There is only the stunningly fragile human body, a holy creation capable of loving with such astonishing strength but which is weak to the curses of a fallen world. It is the frailty of flesh and blood that causes us to succumb to forces greater than ourselves. We are like butterflies, delicate and wonderful, here on earth for only a brilliant moment and then away we fly. Death is appointed merely to close the door to our suffering and open wide the gate to Paradise. "
58 " We shouldn’t think for a moment that just because their lives are short they shouldn’t be here. "
59 " Home isn’t a place where everything stays the same; it’s a place where you are safe and loved despite nothing staying the same. Change always happens. Always. "
60 " Love something long enough and true enough and fate will tear it right out of your hands if it chooses, and there's nothing you can do about it. "