Grief is a curious thing, ...

Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times I stayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that I would not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that my father worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn\'t have to come home to a house that felt too big for us.
Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times I stayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that I would not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that my father worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to come home to a house that felt too big for us.
 Jodi Picoult

Quotes from the same author

My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.
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 Jodi Picoult
The best place to cry is on a mother's arms.
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 Jodi Picoult
I think this is every mother's worst nightmare - something dreadful happening to her child.
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 Jodi Picoult
That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one
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 Jodi Picoult
Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was... ...Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be, when you grow up. I sat between my mother and my father, watching strangers on TV carry in Shaker rockers and dusty paintings and ancient beer tankards and cranberry glass dishes; people and their hidden treasures, who had to be told by experts that they'd taken something incredibly precious for granted.
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 Jodi Picoult