For years afterward, I had dreams in which my mother appeared in strange forms, her features sewn onto other beings in combinations that seemed both grotesque and profound: as a slippery white fish at the end of my hook, with a trout’s gaping, sorrowful mouth and her dark, shuttered eyes; as the elm tree at the edge of our property, its ragged clumps of tarnished gold leaves replaced by knotted skeins of her black hair; as the lame gray dog that lived on the Mueller’s property, whose mouth, her mouth, opened and closed in yearning and who never made a sound. As I grew older, I came to realize that death had been easy for my mother; to fear death, you must first have something to tether you to life. But she had not. It was as if she had been preparing for her death the entire time I knew her. One day she was alive; the next, not. And as Sybil said, she was lucky. For what more could we presume to ask from death – but kindness?. Hanya Yanagihara
About This Quote

“For years afterward, I had dreams in which my mother appeared in strange forms, her features sewn onto other beings in combinations that seemed both grotesque and profound, as a slippery white fish at the end of my hook, with a trout’s gaping, sorrowful mouth and her dark, shuttered eyes; as the elm tree at the edge of our property, its ragged clumps of tarnished gold leaves replaced by knotted skeins of her black hair; as the lame gray dog that lived on the Mueller’s property, whose mouth, her mouth, opened and closed in yearning and who never made a sound. As I grew older, I came to realize that death had been easy for my mother; to fear death, you must first have something to tether you to life. But she had not. It was as if she had been preparing for her death the entire time I knew her.

One day she was alive; the next, not.” The author is talking about her mother’s death and how it affected her. Her mom died when she was 9 years old and it affected all of their lives. Sybil from this quote is talking about how she understands what it is like to lose someone they love.

The quote is very powerful because it shows how much pain people can feel after losing someone they love or even how bad they feel when their loved ones die.

Source: The People In The Trees

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