Thursday, October 6, 2011

Tolkien Quotes: Fallen into Ruin

When at last the blackness passed, Sam looked up and shadows were about him; but for how many minutes or hours the world had gone dragging on he could not tell. He was still in the same place, and still his master lay beside him dead. The mountains had not crumbled nor the earth fallen into ruin.
This is one of the most poignant visions of grief I have ever read, cold as stone, close as my heart. Through the few tragedies that have affected me in my life— the death of my grandparents, my mom’s unexpected plunge into illness, my breakup— I have always been angry that the world has the audacity to keep on turning. Yet the inevitability that I curse is also a blessing. The moon waxes and wanes, the leaves turn gold and red, the sun rolls through a set arc in the sky every day: merciful signposts that, no matter how painful it may be, life goes on.
~Lisa Shafter


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