Where each of us may find the sources of consolation when thus afflicted by a loss is a question of personal experience and fate. I hope that somewhere in the thicket of your sprawling pain you may come upon the small spring that has already cried all the tears before, and, indeed, for you in advance. For it is unthinkable that this ever possible, providential pain, which is so often aimed at and inflicted upon human beings, is inconsolable.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Ah! Mama! I can’t pray anymore and I weep more and more rarely.
But my soul thinks of you, of my thoughts, and my thoughts are consumed in grief.
I don’t ask you to pray for me. You know yourself what sorrows I may have. Tell me, dear mother, from the other world, from Paradise, from the clouds, from wherever you are, does my love console you?
Can my words distill for you a little sweetness, tender and caressing?
— My Life, Marc Chagall
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
~Exodus 2:23-25
