"I'm sorry for your loss."

It's something I've never gotten used to hearing, and there have been too many times to count where I've been too choked up to say anything back. Grief is never an easy process, and everyone deals with it differently. It's hard to understand and empathize with, and it's even harder to explain. It's something I've dealt with continuously since I was thirteen, and it all started when Mom passed away. I experienced it again when Dad passed away when I was sixteen. A lot of time has passed since then, and I remember time mostly either passed too quickly for me to remember or too slowly for me to bear.

On November 8, 2009, the day after she committed suicide, I was still under the concussion of shock. When I walked into the classroom, I didn't feel like the same person I was two nights ago, and I'm sure the look on my face showed it. I looked at just about everything but the faces around me because even eye contact was tough. It was the first time I ever saw a counselor. I was still too numb to answer her questions when she asked me about the stages of grief. When she asked me about denial, I said that I'd already accepted that she died. When I was asked if I felt angry, I said I didn't feel anything. She asked me if I spent any time bargaining, and I told her all I did last night was pray for God to give her back. When she asked if I was depressed, I told her that I just felt a little sad. What gave me a little hope was when she told me that I would recover, even before I knew what I was really dealing with.

Acceptance was the final stage, but I only thought of it as an acceptance of her death. I was told these stages wouldn't necessarily happen in that order, and they might layer on me in different ways and linger. I thought the worst part was that I had to stay positive and tell myself the world wasn't ending. She told me that it normally takes two to three years for someone to recover, so I marked my calendar for November 7, 2012 at the latest. But little did I know that acceptance was much more than just acknowledging death. I had to accept myself, and accept that what I was feeling was a normal response to death, even though this death was abnormal. I hadn't denied that she died, but I denied myself permission to grieve. The hardest part was to stop pretending it didn't happen.

Going to school the next day and saying I was alright with the fake smile that I would put on for the next few years was borderline dehumanizing at times. I didn't want to be at home because it had a certain emptiness to it that I couldn't deal with. Instead of thinking about the times Mom's ear-to-ear smile came out when we rode horses at the barn or huddled up on the couch watching movies, I tried as hard as I could to block it out. This was my beginning as the elephant in the room, although some days I felt like I just blended in and the days went by like ten pounds of sand through a sieve like it did for every other high schooler. Other days I couldn't help but imagine big sticky notes on my forehead that yelled or whispered different labels that I'd given myself to let people know how I felt. I didn't expect to sink into myself, especially since sepsis took Dad at the end of sophomore year.

What did help, more than anything in the world, was my family and friends. I owe my life to them—literally. I didn't expect most nights to be close to sleepless, and nightmares to become a normality. I didn't expect the labels I gave myself and the blame I claimed up until about a year ago to hurt me for so long. Seeing my friends' faces every day gave me the hope I needed that one day I would recover and talk to them again, because one thing that's hard to communicate is that you absolutely need distance. Whenever I was asked how I was doing, "good" was the worst possible thing I could have said, because it wasn't until senior year that I finally started to say that I wasn't, and it brought the hugs and hands to my shoulders that I really needed. To those who are friends of people who are grieving, I know how it feels to approach someone who is grieving. It's impossible, because some days I felt 100% fine, but other days the world seemed like it was upside down, and I wanted to scream it to the world, but as the chameleon elephant in the room, it was easier just to keep my head down and ignore the sticky notes. When those days finally came when I was able to express how I was feeling, encouragement helped more than empathy, because while empathy felt like a friendly pat on the back, encouragement always gave me a boost of positive adrenaline to tell myself that what I was going through was normal. Eventually, days spent caged up in my room turned into days where I enjoyed walking my dogs, playing tennis, and seeing my friends again.

Grief is a whirlwind, and there's no way to describe it. If you know someone who is grieving, respect their space, but be there for them like my friends have always been. Ask how they are doing that day instead of how they are doing in general. It helps to have someone acknowledge their care for you in a way that offers a backbone of support. If you are grieving, give yourself the time and distance you need to get back on track, and know that you are absolutely not alone. Your family and friends are there for you, but it takes time to get back in the swing of life, and you will recover. You just have to believe it.