Healing After Loss

FEBRUARY 18

This is the Hour of Lead—

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons recollect the Snow—

First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—

—EMILY DICKINSON

One can scarcely imagine heavier images than those in this
poem by Emily Dickinson. Yet the feeling is familiar to us—a
heaviness in our step, in our whole body, a heaviness of
mind and heart.
The Chill is accurate, too—a kind of pervasive lethargy.
We may find it hard to think. We forget where we put
something, what we had planned to do. (It’s a good time for
making lists.)
But we do outlive the Hour of Lead. The will of the body
and spirit is for recovery—even for growth, for there is no
recovery without growth.

Even when I am feeling swallowed in an Hour of Lead, I will try
to remember there will be a new time, and a new day.