Winter

Lots of literature pairing winter and grief
Here's a piece of a poem from a book called Medieval English Verse:

Winter rouses all my grief.
Branches strip til they are bare,
And sighing in sorrow, I despair
That earthly pleasures come to nothing.

Fleeting joys, now here, now gone!
True it is, as many say,
Except God's will, all fades away.
Willy-nilly, we shall all die.

Gotta hand it to those medieval Brits. Love that last line. Can you believe that they were saying willy-nilly way back in medieval times?

And then there is this paragraph from the foreword of Winter Grief, Summer Grace by James E. Miller (the title is longer but I can't remember it at the moment.)
A few generations ago, a book like this would have been unnecessary--unthinkable in fact. People knew about grieving because it was a natural part of life. It was both understandable and understood. People of all ages lived with it and honored it. But ours is a different time. And because so many of us are ill-informed about and ill at ease with dying and death and grief, your task is even more difficult.

You can say that again! Oh, to be in a culture that could understand and honor my forgetfulness, my lack of focus, my micro cries, my outbursts, my anything having to do with missing Maura. How I wish I could just wear a color or a garment or something so people would know and I wouldn't have to feel awkward or embarrassed or explain myself or apologize! Why do I apologize? That's just ridiculous.