JANUARY 23
Life only demands from you the strength you possess.
Only one feat is possible—not to have run away.
—DAG HAMMARSKJÖLDSometimes we berate ourselves: Why are we not doing bet-
ter? Particularly if we are people with any pretense to faith,
why can we not muster the resources of faith and be a
model of calm acceptance and inner serenity?
Because we are human beings and we are hurting.
No one worth his or her salt is going to think less of us if
we acknowledge the shattering pain this loss has brought.
People may conceivably hold us in some kind of awe if we
exhibit an unnatural calm, but they will feel closer to us (and
better able to deal with their own grief when their time
comes) if they sense we are being honest. We need to let the
grief flow through us even as we try to be aware of the on-
going life around us.
Sometimes it is a matter of precisely that—letting the grief
flow through us. It is not only, as Hammarskjöld says, the
only possible thing to do, it is an act of the utmost courage.
I will not further burden myself by trying to fit some image of a
“model griever.” The strength I have is the strength to be myself.