Asif Hussain

“Does love bring, even if unconsciously, the delusional arrogance of expecting never to be touched by grief?”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“His humor, already dry, crisped deliciously as he aged.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“Grief is not gauzy; it is substantial, oppressive, a thing opaque. The weight is heaviest in the mornings, post-sleep: a leaden heart, a stubborn reality that refuses to budge. I will never see my father again. Never again. It feels as if I wake up only to sink and sink. In those moments, I am sure that I do not ever want to face the world again.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

“I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but its physicality is: my tongue unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth; on my chest, a heavy, awful weight; and inside my body, a sensation of eternal dissolving. My heart – my actual physical heart, nothing figurative here – is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhythms at odds with mine. This is an affliction not merely of the spirit but of the body, of aches and lagging strength.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief