“People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible.”
More from Joan Didion
“Remember what it is to be me. That is always the point.”
“The fear is not for what is lost. What is lost is already in the wall. The fear is for…”
“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.”
“We know that someone close to us will die. We might expect to feel shock. We do not expect…”