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“Why, what’s the matter, / That you have such a February face, / So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”—William Shakespeare28

Years ago, a part of my job was orienting student chaplains to the hospital world. One thing I did was to have them fill out their own death certificates. That was one way to plunge them into the reality of death in the hospital. Contemplating their own death, they had to fantasize things like how and when it would occur and the name of the next of kin to be notified.

To be a good sport, I also filled out my death certificate. After several years of doing this, it dawned on me that I always chose the first week of February for my death. Why not, I figured, if die I must, die in sync with nature at its coldest, bleakest, and most brutal?

Evidently Februaries across the big pond, at least in Shakespeare’s time, were much like Februaries where I live—“full of frost, of storm and cloudiness.” A February face is a pale face, deprived of Vitamin D, “full of frost.” A February face is a sad face, possibly expressing Seasonal Affective Disorder, sculpted by long nights and cloudy, rainy, icy, or snowy days, and punctuated with too few doses of light. A February face is a long, ground-down face that cries out: “How long, O Lord, how long?”

When we get older, we are more attuned (one would hope) to the impermanence of all things, including Februaries. That may be the hardest part of being young. When we are young and flunk the big test or fail to make the team or get the job or get dropped by the object of our affection or go blank when making a speech and make a total fool of ourselves, it is hard for a while to think we will ever be whole or feel good again. We may even wonder if going on is worth the trouble.

Might you have a February face? If you can hang on just a little longer, change you can believe in—courtesy of Mother Nature—is on the way.