I want to speak to those of you who are grieving the death of someone whom you love, which, by my reckoning, includes about everyone here. For some of you, your pain is still acute. Others, like me, found that the ache of the loss gradually receded. You got up, you went on, but still, at moments when you least expect, grief grips you again and you realize there are not many days in this life without loss. Those whom we love keep leaving, keep journeying to "that land from which no traveler has ever returned."

Emily Dickinson spoke of the "hour of lead" when grief drags down like lead, despite our determined efforts to rise.

My friend, Stuart, for whom I still grieve, once showed me a picture of his parents, both gone at least two decades, and in showing me their photograph said, "I miss …