In the last year or so my family has suffered a great amount of loss and if I’ve learned anything from it, it’s that everyone deals with it differently. Some people cry a lot. Some people don’t. Some reflect on old memories and laugh about the good times, others say nothing at all. Some people are angry. Some people just don’t understand. Some people grieve in public, others rather do it alone.

Everyone grieves in their own time and in their own way. Which can be hard to understand while you are hurting too. A lot of people will tell you how to feel because that’s how they think you should feel. The truth is, there’s no right or wrong way to feel about losing someone close to you.

Emotions may come in stages or you could feel everything at once. If you want to cry, cry. If you want to be angry, be angry. If you want to reflect upon your time together and be grateful for your time together, you can do that too. Do not feel like you should be grieving in the same way that everyone else is. Instead, lean on the ones around you. Find comfort in each other's support.

It can be even harder depending on if your loss was sudden or not. Either way, your circumstances are special to you. This means that your relationship with that person is something only you and they know. So the way in with your mourn them can only be understood by you and you only. Other people cannot tell you what they meant to you.

Eventually, there will be peace. At first, it won’t seem like it but you will come to realize that life goes on and although you miss them greatly, they would want you to keep moving on with your life. This doesn’t mean that you won’t think of them every day, or want to pick up the phone to tell them how your day went.

There’s a comfort knowing that they are not suffering, no matter how they left you. There is a lot of guilt for the living but the one that passed is looking down on you, happy and rooting for you. Keep them with you always and make them as proud of you as if they were standing right next to you along the way.