We all know that crushing feeling that comes the moment you find out someone incredibly dear to you has passed on from this world. Your chest feels like it’s going to cave in.

You feel dizzy because you can’t breathe but at the same time, you are getting too much oxygen. The world stands still but rushes forth. It’s overwhelming and crushing, and completely devastating.

It feels so wrong.

They were a constant part of your life, whether it was someone who lived a thousand miles from you or someone you had seen just hours ago. You can’t possibly imagine a tomorrow without their light in this world. Death acts like the sharpest knife, cutting connections so deep; so treacherously without a care. How can someone be in this world one moment then be missing from our lives forever?

I still struggle with this to this day, even after losing so many close to me.

I remember vividly waking up in a panic in the dead of night, staring into the dark of night just feeling everything come over me in an instant. I remember feeling completely hopeless because how was I supposed to move on with my life when there’s was cut off so suddenly? How could I possibly move forward when it felt like I was leaving them behind? I have felt the hopeless and the devastation. I have felt the crushing loss. Is there any possible way to escape this emotion that casts the world in such a dark light?

There is. Through love.

One simple, yet such a beautiful word. Love. This overwhelming emotion is the one solution we have to tuck the memory of someone we have loved and lost in our hearts and move forward. Love allows us to look into the mirror of sorrow and wipe away the fog, to gaze at our reflections clearly once again and be reminded of why we are here and what we still have yet to do.

The reason we are feeling such intense sorrow and devastation over someone we have lost is that we loved them so dearly during their life. While love is the reason we are hurting so much, it can be what lifts us out of this dark hole. With their love and the memories of the beautiful time they spent in this world, we can move forward and conquer anything.

Moving on is not forgetting.

Moving on is not spitting on their legacy or risking forgetting their wonderful lights. Because of the love that remains in our hearts for them and the memory of the love they held in their hearts for us, we can stare into that reflection and say, “I can do this. I can live.”

Death is not the end. Whether it is your belief that you will see them in a land of eternal love or in the next lifetime, death is not their end. This is not possible if you hold the love you have for them close to you. Hold onto it tightly and never forget the happiness they expressed or the joy they felt.

They left their mark on this world, now it is time to leave yours. Through love.