A meditation on loss

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

- Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Beth is gone. Tyreese is gone. But their shadow looms large over all those that remain. Such is the nature of grief and loss.

In her book "If I Stay," which centers on a young girl in a coma who lost her family and has to decide whether to go on living, Gayle Foreman writes, "Dying is easy. Living is hard." In the beautiful story of hope that is "The Shawshank Redemption," Red (Morgan Freeman) says you have to "get busy living, or get busy dying."

That can be easier said than done, especially when those you love are gone. You can begin to lose hope as their essence fades. In the movie "Simon Birch," based on the incredible novel "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" by John Irving, the adult narrator says, "When someone you love dies, you don't lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over time, like how the mail stops coming."

Those who inhabit the living nightmare that is the post-zombie world of "The Walking Dead" don't have the luxury of time to grieve, or time to collect their thoughts. Every moment of every day is a struggle to survive. When you lose enough people, and suffer enough setbacks, you can lose your grip on reality. If nothing else, the past two seasons have focused on that.

Maggie (Lauren Cohan) lost her sister, and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) lost her brother. But perhaps the hardest hit was Daryl (Norman Reedus), who felt responsible for letting Beth slip from his grasp, and for her ultimate fate.

In Sunday's episode the survivors were on a march to Washington, D.C., a last ditch hope to re-capture a piece of the life they once knew. But they faced obstacles — a lack of water, an absence of food, the ever-constant threat of walkers or, worse, other survivors. But it was the grief, and the tug against their will to live, that was the biggest enemy.

Maggie found herself crying. She had been through an emotional roller-coaster. She thought she lost her sister, then learned she was alive just in time to find her dead. She struggled with the loss of the last of her family.

Sasha suffered a pair of blows. First Bob (Laurence Gillyard, Jr.) was taken, then she lost her brother. Her anger burned, and it made her reckless. She put herself and the others in danger. She couldn't see a reason for caution, not anymore.

Daryl kept it all bottled up. It wasn't until Carol (Melissa McBride) urged him to let it out that Daryl was even able to acknowledge the pain and grief he was feeling.

Then the storm came — a physical manifestation of the rage, grief, and doubt held inside. And, as it always does, the storm passed. The dawn came. The light returned. And the fight continues.

It was a beautifully told story, and a beautiful meditation on grief, loss, and the will to go on. As Thomas wrote, it's time for them to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."