October 7, 2016, I lost my Uncle Sac to cancer. At that point, it was expected, seeing how long his fight had been. We all kind of knew it was coming, that the news would get back to us eventually. That dread lived with us for months as he continued to live past what he was expected to.

When the news made its way back to us on that Friday, though, it still crushed all of us here at home that hadn't seen him in years and hadn't been able to get into contact with since his diagnosis. My chest ached and my head spun. I was so stunned, even after all those months of knowing, that I couldn't cry. I didn't for hours, and then I broke and couldn't stop crying. It was like all of that twisted, dreaded anticipation had built to a crescendo and was bursting out of me.

Two years have passed since that day, and a lot has changed. I'm a junior in college and working part time. Instead of being days away from turning eighteen, I'm days away from turning twenty.

I don't think about my uncle every day anymore. I don't suddenly stop in the middle of the day, wondering why I feel so empty, only to realize that it's because of his absence. I don't find myself constantly wishing that I'd had the chance to say goodbye. The tears don't well up often, and when they do, they usually last a few minutes. I've grown and changed a lot, and my grief has adjusted itself to fit into the person that I've become in that time.

As people, we can't spend our whole lives mourning a single loss. Our lives must move on after a point. The time it takes to properly mourn is different from person to person, but that time will come. Otherwise, your life becomes nothing more than a museum of loss. You hold yourself back from accomplishing things because you're not concerned with yourself.

No matter what you believe, you have to know in your heart that your loved ones would never want you to stop your life just because they're gone.

I know this about my uncle Sac far too well. Every time we'd talk, he would ask me how school was going, and always say "I'm so proud of you" no matter what I said. Every phone call would end with "Uncle Sac is so proud of you. I love you, honey."

So it's been two years since my uncle died, and I'm proud of the person that I have become. I've figured out how to live with my grief to the extent that there are days that I forget that it's there. I've forgiven myself for never telling him that I loved him one last time. I've stopped crying, for the most part.

Most of all though, I've become a young woman that I know he would be proud of.