When I was a little kid I never understood the magnitude of loss. I recognized that I should be upset when people leave and never come back, but I didn’t have the capacity to understand the long term effects of ending relationships or losing a loved one.

I used to think that the hardest part of losing someone was the initial loss. The initial heartbreak you felt when you realized they wouldn’t continue to be a large part of your life and it hits you like a tsunami. This large wave of sadness and grief rushes over you–paralyzing you in its path.

But, after 20 years of experience, I’ve come to understand that it isn’t.

The hardest part of losing someone isn’t the constant sadness that rips open your heart every time their name is brought up. It isn’t finding an old piece of clothing of theirs in your laundry and being overpowered by their scent that you thought you would never smell again. It isn’t driving down the road and being haunted by the places you went with them. It isn’t going through old photos and having nostalgia hit you at a thousand miles an hour. It isn’t hearing their favorite song on the radio and being brought to tears because they aren’t there to sing terribly with you.

No, it isn’t any of that.

The hardest part of losing someone is waking up one day and not being able to remember what their voice sounds like. It is when you have a perfect day, I mean absolutely perfect – the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, you’ve hit all of the green lights on your morning commute – and don’t even realize that it’s the anniversary of their departure. It is when you forget their favorite fruit, or can’t remember who their teacher was in third grade. The hardest part of losing someone is forgetting bits and pieces of them, so slowly that you don’t even realize you’re forgetting them until it’s too late.

I remember when I was a kid and I would get upset when I would have to say goodbye to a friend or teacher because I was moving, yet again (thank you mom for being stationed in a new state every three years), I remember when my striped tabby cat ran away and my parents had to break the news to me before I went the Disneyworld, I remember the shock I felt when I experienced death for the first time in elementary when my father tearfully told me that my great-grandmother passed away in her sleep, I remember how hurt I felt when I was told I had lost my grandma to cancer, and I remember, and never will forget, how much my heart shattered when I found out that I would never see my big brother again.

But despite the initial grief I felt when faced with all of those experiences, I still believe in my heart that the hardest part of losing someone isn’t them leaving, it’s letting them go.