“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
As the deep chill of January sets in and our nation struggles under the weight of too many months of staggering loss and deadly division, it is easy for hope to wear thin — like a coat that has been worn too long, tattered and frayed. Whatever has kept you going through these long months of bearing your personal loss in a dramatically changed world may be in short supply after such a long and difficult year.
In those moments when winter is full upon us and our spirits are chilled to the bone, Camus’ words ring like a bell of hope: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. How is it that Camus can find summer in the midst of winter’s devastation? How is it that any one of us in our own winter of unbearable grief can trust that summer even exists, much less can exist again for us?
We begin by learning to trust the process of Winter, the process of grief. Writer Katherine Mays calls Winter a “crucible,” a time of alchemy, a time when plants and animals undergo profound transformation to survive the harshness of the season. On the surface, Winter looks like utter devastation — lush greenery dies back, trees lose their leaves, animals disappear through hibernation or migration. But, she explains, the apparent devastation is in reality a time of retreat necessary for the renewal and regeneration of Spring. Nature is resting, regrouping, restocking.
This is as true for grief as it is for nature. There are times in the grief process when we are surprised by our ability to move about almost normally — perhaps even to move forward — and other times when we are so frozen we cannot believe we will ever move again. But like Winter, the apparent utter devastation of deep grief is neither permanent nor complete. It is a season, a necessary season, a time of retreat crucial for the regeneration that every loss demands of us.
To survive — and eventually, to thrive — we must acknowledge that we are in the difficult season of Winter. This allows us to take better care of ourselves, accepting and adapting to our current limits. It is by letting our grief change us that we survive Winter and move toward a more verdant Spring. As Mays puts it:
Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs.
Mays’ words stay with me: They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. This is what I witness as a grief counselor day after day, year after year, in every season — extraordinary transformations, life-changing insights, courageous vulnerability. In the midst of howling Winter, the discovery deep within of impossible, invincible Summer.
Every January I find a few early daffodils unfolding their bold yellow trumpets against the drab winter backdrop of a neighbor’s yard. Invincible summer: so much life, bravely asserting itself despite the certainty of freezing nights still to endure. I know from experience that these fragile-looking flowers will survive the deadly cold because year after year I have watched them do so; I have learned to trust that they are made for this, that they have what it takes not only to endure the threat of being overcome but to open themselves once again to the rhythms of life. In delicate vulnerable blossom that is somehow impossibly strong.
I trust this for you as well. I trust your invincible summer; I trust you to find it and to have the courage to bloom again.
“Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.”
― Alice Mackenzie Swaim
Interview with Katherine Mays: https://onbeing.org/programs/katherine-may-how-wintering-replenishes/
Her book: Wintering — The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Photo Credit: Charles Tyler on Unsplash