Read This When You Are Grieving

Your knees have caved in and you fall to the floor. You’re wallowing in a pain so deep, so unfathomably strong, you don’t know how you’ll stand again. You didn’t even know a heart could bear this type of physical pain.

The death of someone who you hold very close to your heart is one of the harshest ways a human being will ever experience loss. There is no time and no one to tell you how long you are supposed to grieve. You will be grieving your whole life, because love is endless. The connection you had with your loved one is the only one you will ever understand. Be easy on yourself and let others express their sympathy. Let yourself cry every day. Let yourself scream at the top of your lungs. Give yourself time to rebuild your aching heart.

Death can creep up out of nowhere, leaving you blindsided and completely in shambles. Death teaches you that you have to be strong, even when your heart feels weak. When death happens, you feel everything in its present form and feel time standing still. An unexpected death will still hurt the same as an expected death. Death still hurts the same amount. There is no right way a death is supposed to feel. Death will teach you to replay every single memory in your head and hold onto that so deeply for the rest of your life. Death will teach you to fall asleep in hopes that your loved one will come to visit you in your dreams one last time.

Most importantly, death teaches you that we only have a limited time on this earth. Because one day, inevitability, death will come to you too. Time is nothing but an illusion. Love those around you, but really love them. Let those you love know every single day. Spend time making memories. Spend time laughing. Spend time doing something you love with your whole heart. Take pictures of everything. Write letters. Explore everything that this precious world has to offer. Say yes even when you feel like saying no.

I write this to tell you that I have experienced both expected and unexpected losses. Young and old. Healthy and sick. They both hurt tragically in their own ways. I write this to tell you that your heart will heal, but your heart will always grieve. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Death is slipping into the next room, knowing that you are both holding onto each other from both sides of the wall until you are in the same room again.