Karen White

“Some are called to be gardeners of souls, and she'd tended hers with the blind dedication that accepted the floods and famine along with the sunshine.”

“When everything you're about to see is too much, look up and see that the sky is clear and know that everything is going to be all right.”

“The word that came to me now was "defiant." Because a person had to be defiant to be able to stand amid the wreckage of her life and instead of shaking a fist, pick up a hammer.”

“Storms bring the detritus of other people's lives into our own, a reminder that we are not alone, and of how truly insignificant we are. The indiscriminating waves had brutalized the shore, tossing pieces of splintered timber, an intact china teacup, and a gentleman's watch—still with its cover and chain—onto my beloved beach, each coming to rest as if placed gently in the sand as a shopkeeper would display his wares. As I rubbed my thumb over the smooth lip of the china cup, I thought of how someone's loss had become my gain, of how the tide would roll in and out again as if nothing had changed, and how sometimes the separation between endings and beginnings is so small that they seem to run together like the ocean's waves.”

“Life isn't perfect. It's not supposed to be. We all make mistakes. You bash your head against the wall and you get hurt, but you walk away and make the best of it. And that's what makes it life, Brenna, not perfection. You'll never find happiness if you only expect to find a perfect life. Happiness is something we reach for while we try to learn from our disappointments.”

“I can not regret what I have learned. Regardless of what you decide and what becomes of us, it will not change this belief, and whatever children I may have, I will try to teach them this: that life is meant to be more than existence. Fight for and hold on to your passion, whatever it is, but surrender gracefully when the passion is well spent. For it is through loss that we learn, and grief that we grow stronger, and living that we learn how to love. Everything is a choice, and by avoiding choices, one not only ensures that a wrong decision won't be made, but also steals a soul's chance to live, to learn, and to love.”

“To give up too easily leads to regret, yet trying and then failing can lead us to second chances if we do not accept it as a failure, but a chance to learn.”

“Do you know how diamonds are made?" She gazed steadily at him, the light turning her green eyes transparent.He didn't wait for her to answer. "They're made of a single element - carbon. But, over millions of years, the carbon had to undergo incredible pressure-something like a minimum of four hundred pounds per square inch-and cook to at least seven hundred degrees. The amazing thing is that if there's not enough pressure or heat, instead of a diamond, plain old graphite is made. Imagine that-instead of the world's most indestructible and beautiful thing, you get just graphite. Something to make pencils with. Sure, pencils are nice and useful. But they aren't diamonds.”

“Sometimes we make decisions because it seems to be the only path visible at the moment. It's only later that we see there was more than one path, but the others were blocked from our vision at the time. That's the thing with hindsight, you see. Even if you can see it clearly, there's no going back. It's at that point we need to turn around and stare ahead and make a new life.”

“I think that her life was about finding the extraordinary in every day. It was how she could sit in her garden on a rainy day and see the beauty in it. It's what got her out of bed every morning.”

“I wish I could change things for you, make it so this all doesn't have to hurt so much. But that's the point, isn't it? That one day we'll find that the pain we suffered was worth it.”

“I reached for Helen's hand, and felt her squeeze back, accepting that I would understand more than most the missing part of the human heart rendered by the absence of a mother and father.”

“Where there is life, there is hope.”

“Maybe with Sara's accident he had finally begun to see that life continued after a fall and that the hands that reached to pull you out didn't have to be your own.”

“She thought of the horse with his scars and wondered if having them so visible wasn't preferable to the hidden kind where nobody knew how to avoid the parts that still hurt.”

“Sometimes I guess you need to lose everything before you realize what's really important.”

“We all need something to soften the sharp edges. To give us balance. Otherwise, I think we'd find ourselves stumbling around in the dark like lost souls.”

“I noticed again the bruised oaks nearby, and their gallant attempts to flourish as if their scars didn't exist. "Why did some of the oaks die and some survive?"Aimee gave me an elegant one-shoulder shrug. "Why do some people stay after a hurricane and why do some never come back?" She looked at me, her eyes measuring. "Why do some people continue to search for the missing, and others give up? I don't know. But I think sometimes a person has to be forced underwater to see if they're going to drown or swim.”

“Moving on doesn't mean forgetting.”

“We've learned that great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness. It's like a needed reminder that the human spirit is alive and well despite all evidence to the contrary.”

“I looked around the garden, the sun feeling warm on my back. "So why are you here? I would think you'd want to be as far away from a hurricane as possible."She looked at me as if I'd just suggested streaking down the beach. It took her a moment to answer. "Because this is home." She wanted to see if the words registered with me, but I just looked back at her, not understanding at all.After a deep breath, she looked up at a tall oak tree beyond the garden, its leaves still green against the early October sky, the limbs now thick with foliage. "Because the water recedes, and the sun comes out, and the trees grow back. Because" -she spread her hands, indicated the garden and the trees and, I imagined, the entire peninsula of Biloxi- "because we've learned that great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness. It's like a needed reminder that the human spirit is alive and well despite all evidence to the contrary." She lowered her hands to her sides. "I figured I wasn't dead, so I must not be done”

“I stared back at him, trying to think of a way to explain how I'd eradicated the word "want" from my vocabulary long ago and replaced it with "need." It made life so much easier that way, blowing away all the unnecessary and distracting clutter from a life of purpose, much like I imagined a storm sweeping away anything not strong enough to withstand the struggle.”

“You have to get through the rain if you're ever going to see a rainbow.”

“The highway of life was littered with the roadkill of those who didn't know when to change lanes.”

“A life without rain is like the sun without shade.”

“A great man once wrote, "Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire." If only I were as eloquent as Mr. de la Rochefoucauld...I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I want you. And I need your kiss. And your touch on my skin like a man needs water. Always.”

“But there is room now in my heart for more memories, carved by a letting go that I could find only by coming home to a place I'd never been.”

“Great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness.”

“You ain’t dead yet, so you ain’t done.”

“But I think sometimes a person has to be forced underwater to see if they're going to drown or swim.”

“The answers we seek aren't always the answers we want, are they? But knowing the truth is what helps us sleep at night.”

“when you lose your sails, row.”

“it wasn't the mountain ahead that wears you out, but the grain of sand in your shoe”

“Death and loss, they plague you. So do memories. Like the Mississippi's incessant slap against the levees, they creep up with deceptive sweetness before grabbing your heart and pulling it under.”

“I know what it is to hope and pray so hard that you're sure God will answer your prayer just so you'll stop asking.”

“Mama?""Yes, Emmy."She traced a rivulet of rain with her finger as it made its journey down the glass. "How do you know when it's been long enough?"Emmy could sense her mother smiling into the phone. "When you relaize that love doesn't have a time span. Only pain does. I think sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two, so we just hold on to both of them like they're inseparable.”

“Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim....Be patient and strong; someday this pain will be useful to you.”

“That there are no troubles in life that can't be sorted through or solved by spending time in the garden”

“Every woman needs a daughter to tell her stories to. ”

“They say that not matter how old you become, when you are with your siblings, you revert back to childhood.”

“Miles and years become suddenly invisible when you find yourself back where you started from, as if you've learned nothing and you are once again the person you once were.”

“Strong winds buffet the sea oats and tall dune grasses, tossing sand and seabirds where it will, winding my sister's golden hair into sunlit spirals of silk until it becomes the only good memory I have of her -- the only memory I allowed myself to keep.”

“Every woman should have a daughter to tell her stories to. Otherwise, the lessons learned are as useless as spare buttons from a discarded shirt. And all that is left is a fading name and the shape of a nose or the color of hair. The men who write the history books will tell you the stories of battles and conquests. But the women will tell you the stories of people's hearts.”