To be truthful, there were periods last winter when melancholy permeated my very being as though I were infirmed by a viral infection.

It wasn’t merely inclement weather; all of us are fortified enough by the experience of years – and degree of realism – to accept wintertime in winter country. “Snowing, blowing, we keep going” is the motto of year-round Mainers who shrug off each other’s complaints in deep winter more easily than we do “summer complaints,” as the seasonal visitors, comically, are dubbed.

What brought about my lingering mood, no doubt, were the deaths of several community neighbors and friends who vanished – along with the winter – as now it seems.

From one key coastal point, our town and all the lights that tell its story can be seen. Through spring, when a few hardy souls braving the raw winds picnic on the benches; through summer, when hordes of tourists blanket the grass like ground cover and explore the shoreline along with scavenging gulls. Through fall, when older folk in campers stop for the day – and for the panorama of our tiny town – before motoring onwards to other scenic spots, none of which will measure up to what they’ve already photographed.

Then winter comes. The view from the point, looking back to the town, is dramatically different than during other seasons. No surprise there. No extraordinary yachts gracing the harbors, no open speedboats, no day sailors, no seals sunning themselves on ledges, no Jet Skis, no barefooted youngsters scouring the slippery rocks and sand for hidden sea treasures.

In winter, ice covers the area where purple sea heather will bloom this summer. In winter, the pleasure boats are stored; only those tough working boats for harvesters of sea urchins or scallops or those of a few lobster fishermen leave the icy harbors for the open offshore fisheries.

In winter, the lights of the town are dimmer from that one certain point where I look northwest before turning around the snowplowed circle and heading back home.

And last winter, the lights dimmed further, and my melancholy grew like mushrooms in damp dark. Too many people – friends, family, acquaintances – in our small, familiar world died last winter, and one by one of us was touched in a way that touched the next person and by empathy, the very next person.

I often went to the scenic point to observe the town from that perspective … and to reflect. If I were a poet, Longfellow’s words would have been my own: “I see the lights of the village gleam through the rain and the mist, and a feeling of sadness comes o’er me that my soul cannot resist …”

But I now can sit there and no longer think of sadness or dwell on loss but of renewal and rebirth. Time has melted the snows. Time has eased the sorrows.

Spring has brought revival to the spirit.