The loss of someone close to you always hurts more than it can be put into words. In a world where we've come to accept that people do eventually pass with age, but when someone your age does pass sometimes the loss is harder to accept. No matter how many words you try to write, or scream as you try to put your thoughts out there, nothing will quite describe the pain. It's no different five years later.
Five years later the pain of loss is still there and they are still missed, but it's different now. As time passes you begin to realize it's not worth crying every night, it's not worth thinking about the what ifs and what life would be like if they were still here. While it may take time, the tears don't come out as often as they used to. The things that used to remind you of them slowly become irrelevant.
It's not to say that you've forgotten them, it's just that you've learned to move on while still remembering. While there are people who say that by moving on you're forgetting, five years down the road, the difference there is evident.
The songs we used to dance to late at night, the bag of mine you used to tell me would always remind you of me, the daily talks, and all the things that remind me of our good times no longer set me into a fit of tears, but rather a melancholy remembrance of a soul gone too soon. It's always important to remember the past, both the good times and the bad. While I'll always remember the day I found out my friend passed away, I'll always remember the good times we had when she wasn't sick.
Five years down the road and I still miss her. Unlike the first two years, I've come to terms with the fact that she's gone. The strange beauty of time is that it teaches you to cope, to move on. You learn not to dwell in the past and to not ask yourself too often "what would happen if she was still here?" You learn that while death can make an impact, life changes so fast that you can never predict what role the person would have played if he or she was still here today.
While no one's loss is comparable to another, everyone copes differently. In the end, as the years pass, the difference between moving on and forgetting becomes incredibly clear. Five years later, and the memories are still there, but the tears are far less constant and the thoughts less overwhelming. As you grow older loss begins to play a different role in your life, one of learning, and acceptance.
