On February 26, 2016, I lost a loved one. Before this day, the words ‘grief’ and ‘death’ were just words. It was foreign to me; words that I couldn’t seem to relate to. Not because I didn’t lose anyone that meant something to me -- I have lost grandparents and two incredible uncles. But these emotions have not made their way to the surface for several years. It’s not until it happens to you that you’re the one left with sadness and broken pieces that you are forced to try and pick up.
Hundreds of thousands of people die every day. People die and yet the world continues to spin. The sun still manages to rise and set, people go to work, many enjoy an afternoon jog, but it isn’t until it happens to you that the world suddenly feels as though it should stop spinning. When you lose a loved one, you feel as though the world should stop and mourn with you. You wonder how everyone else around you can go on with their days while your world seems to have stopped right in its tracks.
Grief and sadness comes in waves, and sometimes it can feel as though you can barely make your way up to the surface for air. I have found my emotions hitting me right in the middle of making dinner, in a car ride home, whenever I see a golf course, and even when I’m trying my best to pay attention in class. I have found myself in the middle of a laugh as well as in the middle of singing a song thinking about my loved one. There isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t cross my mind, whether I see something that reminds me of her or I think to myself, “I wish they were here to see this.”
The pain of a tragic and unexpected loss will never lose its severity. It is the scariest thing to know that a world you have built so hard to keep together could shatter in a matter of seconds. It has to be one of the most terrifying things and hardest concept to wrap my head around.
I read an article the other day about a woman who had lost her job and income, but it wound up being her greatest blessing. She writes in one of her articles, “It’s hard to acknowledge when we are in the thick of a painful experience, that what we are enduring may be a beginning, rather than an ending.” I don’t know how the loss of a beautiful soul could be a blessing or rather a beginning of something. But I do know that although I am grieving, I have found the true meaning of love and what it means to be a family. We have begun treating each day for just how precious it really is.
I can feel the way my mom hugs me, and it’s even tighter than it was a month ago. We tell each other we love one another at least five times before we leave the house because we now know how precious life is and just how easily things can be taken away. In this time of grief, I have endured love like I have never experienced before. I have learned to make phone calls to relatives I haven’t talked to in a long time, hug my mom and dad extra hard before I leave the house, make amends with my sister, and show nothing but love to the people around me.
I reflect on how truly blessed I am that God chose this special person to enter my life. How lucky am I to have been blessed with a person that showed me so much love, support, gave me a lot of laughs, and showed me the importance of not caring what others think of you? How lucky am I to have spent my life loving and being loved by such a special person?
In loving memory of someone who meant so much to so many people, my aunt, Janine Kuhner.
