I don’t know why it happens. I don’t know when. I don’t know if there’s any underlying plan or reason. Sometimes I feel just like you—angry, lonely, scared, sad, confused—and I shake my fist at the sky, asking God over and over again. Why?

Why does He take the ones we love away?

If I could give you an answer, I would.

I believe it’s because He has bigger plans for their lives, or He wants to rid of their suffering, or He wants us to lean into Him, to trust Him, even on our darkest days.

But we are only human.

And letting go of the ones we love and lose is hard. Is so very hard.

But I want you to understand something. I want you to hold this close to your heart and never let it go. I want you to know that you are a good person. A good man, a good woman, a good daughter or son, a good father or mother, a good friend or lover or wife or husband or person walking on this earth.

I don’t know what makes fate play out as it does.
I don’t know God’s plan any more than you do.

But I do know that death is something humans cannot control.

We cannot put our finger on the answers. We cannot create a fix that will keep the ones we love from slipping through our tight grasps. We cannot make sense of when they will leave us, or why it happens when it does.

But we must know that in their death, their pain is lifted. That they are free of this earth and the struggle that comes with it.

Please, find comfort in your loss. Know that the person you love is looking down on you, is proud of you, is so filled with love for you.

You cannot take responsibility for their passing. You cannot carry the weight of their death on your shoulders like a lead blanket, dragging you further and further down.

You must know that you did what you could.

That you loved them while they were alive, even in their brokenness. You loved them even when they didn’t deserve it, and maybe you could have loved more, sure, we can all play that painful game with our hearts. But what matters is that you did love. Is that you were there.

Is that you mourn their loss. And now hopefully celebrate their life.

I know I cannot take away your pain or make the loss any smaller. And I don’t want to. You need to grieve. You need to feel. You need to let yourself heal, piece by piece, moment by moment, day by day.

But I want you to know that you are not at fault. That you are not a bad person because the one you love lost their battle. There is nothing you could have done differently to change the course of life, to change God’s plan, to change the path we are traveling on.

You loved. That’s what matters. And you love now.

And you will keep loving. You will make a purpose for this loss, you will use it to move forward, to become stronger, to bless the lives around you.

So please dig yourself out of the hole you’ve created. Release your guilt, your fear, your anger, your pain to the sky and breathe in fresh air.

You are a wonderful person. Your existence matters. And in the absence of someone else’s existence, you need to hold onto that even more.

Forgive yourself. Love yourself. Let go.
Trust that there is a purpose for pain and a reason for the end of a life.

And lean into love once again.
The world needs your smiling face.