“…her body had absorbed the habit of sadness, so that sadness flowed all through her and became a natural part of her movements.”

I am reading a novel titled Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell and the main character’s father is killed in it. There is a sentence about her grief after some time has passed that I love. In a previous blog I said I call them “gemstone sentences,” they seem to glow on the page like a gem. I have heard many descriptions of grief, some of which are helpful. I appreciate the descriptions that don’t say grief disappears. There’s one I think of often where someone said that the hole in your heart doesn’t go away, but your life starts to fill the space around it.

This sentence, though, felt very apt. Somehow the grief becomes a part of you. The whole sentence is:

Margo didn’t miss her father any less as the weather warmed, but by then her body had absorbed the habit of sadness, so that sadness flowed all through her and became a natural part of her movements.