On grief and writing

There's not much to say until later.  When the shock settles the words will come.  And sorrow is so big--there are mothers, and fathers, and siblings and teachers and classmates, and it's impossible for words to hold them all.

Still, for me words help.

Hope  

Emily Dickinson

   

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.