~daily message from Healing After Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman

Hikers refer to them as "middle-miles."  These are the most
exhausting, challenging miles on the path, when the exhilaration of
beginning the journey has evaporated into drudgery and the promise of
the path's end has not yet given new energy for the stepping.

~Henry E. Woodruff

The journey through grief is very different from the climb up a
heroic mountain.  Yet there are stages of that ascent which remind us
of our own climb out of the valley of despair.  In the early days and
weeks of our grieving we usually have much to help us - the
solicitude of friends, the gathering around of our religious
community, the profferings of help.

Then we are in for the long haul, when we are at least as sad but
more on our own.  We wonder whether we shall ever feel our old energy
and hunger for life again.  We observe that people who have been
grieving do feel better.  We are told we will, too, and in our heads
maybe we believe it.  But the days and weeks drag on and we don't see
any infusion of light and joy.

Like the climbers in the "middle-miles," we must keep going, knowing
that one day we will get on top of our lives again.  Looking back,
we'll marvel at how far we've come.