My grandma passed away this past year.

The phone call was abrupt and unreal. One day she was here, and the other day, gone. I remember little of that day, except that my father had to fly out to Cuba to settle her will and decide what to do with her few possessions, leaving his wife and kids back home in Queens. I sat on the couch, frozen, and watched episode after episode of "Breaking Bad" without actually following the plot.

To this day, it doesn’t feel quite real.

I keep expecting a phone call from an out of area number and hearing her croaky voice say that I was going to be the first female president because that’s what I told her I wanted to be at the tender age of seven.

That call has yet to come.

I don’t know exactly what made her death seem so surreal to me. Perhaps it was the fact that I never got to go to the funeral held hundreds of miles away. The gravity of the situation didn’t hit me until my dad returned home and his eyes were permanently bloodshot from crying — she was gone and never coming back.

More recently, my friend confided to me that many beloved people in her life had taken their own lives and she had felt that she couldn’t escape the burdening shadow of death constantly following her. With a shaky voice, she tearfully confessed that her faith in God faltered as she wondered why she was always targeted for the worst life had to offer.

My heart broke as I tried to console her but comforting her was difficult when I had no answers myself.

And to what end? What comes after life but death and more death? Humanity has searched for a greater purpose since the dawn of time, simply because the thought of living until we die fills one with unbearable hopelessness and dread.

Everyone needs something to look forward to, to push forward for — whether it be love, success, or having the chance to impact the world in a way that will last long after you, we all have a raison d’être even if we are unaware of it.

Death reminds us that we are alive.