It's been a year, maybe two, since someone very dear to you said their final goodbyes. Or maybe, they didn't get to. For me, it's been three-and-a-half years since my dad was killed. There are a lot of things that go through your mind when you lose someone like that — pain, denial, questioning. Many public school health classes include a section about mourning, which outlines it as a five-stage process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This curriculum does fine for giving outsiders an idea of what you might be going through, but it does not actually prepare a person for mourning a loved one. You may have been taught that the process happens in the exact order of the stages listed above, or that it happens within a certain time frame, but personal experience can very quickly teach you otherwise.

Here are some thoughts we have when actually going through the mourning process.

Is my grieving normal?

We all experience grief differently. Often, there come up things that we may not think are "normal." In my case, I developed a very strong obsession with the embalming process, decay of a corpse, and funerary customs around the world. I've heard of other people feeling strange about simply not feeling like they were grieving. The answer to this question is yes, your grieving is normal, because it's yours. No one else is experiencing this tragedy in quite the way that you are, so you have no reason at all to hold up to anyone else's standards of mourning.

Why is this taking so long?

"Yeah, but he died like, three years ago. Why are you still sad?" Unfortunately, there are many people who may not understand that the death of a loved one is a very permanent, life-changing loss. It's very easy to brush off this ignorance when it's someone who doesn't know you very well, but if someone you love wasn't around to see how much that person meant to you, they may be the one asking "Why does it still hurt you?" In that case, you may start to question yourself. You may start to think something is wrong with you for not getting over it or for still missing that person. You may start to stifle your grief. It is important to understand that you are always going to miss that person, because they will always be missing. The fits of crying may become less frequent but you will always have a space in your heart that can't be filled by anyone else. This is okay. The healing process after the death of a loved one is a life-long one. You don't have to or need to stop missing them. Just remember that they probably would want you to keep moving forward in your life and to be happy.

I'm not denying it, but my dreams are.

For many people, dreams play a pivotal role in the progression of the grieving process. Many people are lucky enough to dream of the happy times with their missing person, or to dream that that person comes to see them and give them advice in a hard time. Others of us find that, while our waking selves seem to completely accept the death of the loved one, our dreams like to depict that they are in fact still alive somewhere. For me, these dreams are especially painful. I was always a Daddy's girl, so it kills me to dream that he is in fact still alive and just faked his death because he didn't want to be my dad anymore (ridiculous, yes, but still very painful). Other people dream that their person comes back from the dead as a full-on zombie. These dreams are a normal result of your brain trying to process and make sense of what has happened.

Will it ever get better?

Yes and no. Even just thinking about the future without your loved one can sometimes be enough to bring on the waterworks. Maybe your mom won't be there for your college graduation, or your brother is going to miss your senior viola recital. Personally, I'll never get to have my dad give me away on my wedding day, and that kills me. But the fact is that the happy things that are coming for you are still coming for you, even though that person is missing. You'll still fight to earn that degree, that standing ovation, that first home. You'll meet your soul mate, start a family, or maybe devote your life to your faith. You'll learn to feel joy even in their absence; you'll find that the love they gave you while they were here carries on into your future. You'll hear her say, "Good job, baby." You'll feel his hug as he says, "Way to go, sis!" You'll smell the cologne that you know they would wear to your special day, and that beaming smile will shine bright in your mind. Because they loved you while you had them, you'll be okay.