She wanted — what some people want throughout life — a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.

Her grief grieved her. His devastated her.

She was lost in her longing to understand.

Sorry for her loss. And he had hugged her. Like he knew what she was holding inside, this secret grief that had hardened where her hidden love once lay.

I do not know everything; still many things I understand.

Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration.

They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

And she would weep. When he saw tears rolling down her face, he would forgive her.
She was less certain whether she would forgive herself.

She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.

Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.

You don't share a language, you think, and then you realise, grief is a language. We understand each other, people with troubled pasts.

I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.

I thought you understood where I'd lost what you call my heart at the time.

She looked down again and I was stymied. I sat. Oh, this was enough to make me love her, because I was right with her, understanding every second and longing to step in. I didn’t even need to know the specific that was troubling her, because to me her halting voice easily stood for the general woe that hangs in the air, even on life’s happiest days.