If you have been unfortunate enough to have a loved one pass away when they were young, you will likely know the feeling of emptiness it leaves behind. Granted, everyone experiences loss and grief slightly differently. However, there are some commonalities. Having gone through this, I can say that the process is awful.

You will begin to think about them constantly, without even realizing that you are. The loss of this person is always at the back of your mind. At first, it feels as though you will just see them on the next holiday when you are both home. It doesn’t feel real, because you may not have seen them frequently anyway. After a few months, your mind starts to realize that this isn’t normal. There is something missing here. If you lived with them or were around them often, this feeling sets in earlier. It might take some time to register that they won’t be back.

The moment you found out about their passing will not be easily forgotten. It was like time was moving so slowly and you were in a dream. There was no way you could have known the previous day that this would become a part of your life. This moment of horror will replay in your mind for weeks and months to come. The second you got the phone call, when someone told you of your loved one’s passing, the minute you read the headline, will forever be a morose memory. Maybe you will cry when you find out, or maybe you will be too overwhelmed to cry. There is never a way to prepare yourself for this. Regardless of the manner of their passing, whether there was “time to prepare” or not, you will never be ready.

There will be so many times when you will question, so many things to question. Why did my loved one have to leave so soon? In what way is this fair? How could this happen? How did this happen? Most likely, you will never get the answer to these questions. You will always play out the what-ifs in your head. “What if I had called him that day?” “What if I had been with her?” You feel helpless and powerless because you had no way of knowing at the time that something would happen to them. You might blame yourself for some time. “I should have noticed.” But of course, it was not your fault. You could not have cured their disease, and you had no way of having a random premonition about this. It’s not as though this is God’s way of punishing you for something bad you did. This was not your fault.

It will be such a frequent thing that you see them in your everyday life. Even if it isn’t by looking at the photograph of them on your mantle, your surroundings will remind you of them. By seeing their favorite flower, or eating their favorite food without them, or hearing their favorite song, instantly this reminds you of them. You might even have dreams about them. Maybe you will replay videos or recordings of them over and over, trying to go back to the time when they were here with you. Thinking of times they never got to experience will weigh on you. Your loved one’s birthday will be a difficult day for everyone they left behind. You will wish they could be there to see your milestones. And more than anything, you will wish that they were here to make milestones of their own. It will be scary to think that you will not be able to attend their wedding. The last milestone event you will attend is their funeral, entirely too soon.

If you had one more day with them, of course, you would tell them how much you love them, miss them, and value them. You know that this can not happen in this lifetime, and it will hurt. Every time you are reminded of them, it will hurt a little bit or a lot. I can’t promise that it will get easier with time, because likely, it won’t. As you grow older than your older sibling, and as more songs come out that they never got to hear, it might even get more difficult by the day.

You need to know that you are not alone in this. There are so many others who are suffering from the same loss of the same exact loved one. Their experience is not all that different from your own. Whether you were their acquaintance, friend, sibling, parent, child, or other relative, you will need one another for support. It is so important to lean on others in times of trouble. Loss is heavy, but with friends and family there to hold you when you cry, to give you a hug, or reminisce, it can be a little bit lighter. The pain of your loss will not completely disappear, and there are certainly days where you will feel like you are drowning and you miss them more than anything. You feel it was too soon for them to leave you, and there is no way of changing that.

There is no way of changing God’s timing or arguing that it was too soon for them to pass away. As much as you will want to, you can not change it. All we can do is to keep supporting the living, and helping our other loved ones to have as long and happy of a life as possible. If nothing else, do this for the one you lost.

If you or someone you know needs help coping with loss or is struggling with something in their own life, please seek help from a local counselor or tell someone you trust. There are also support groups available for those who are grieving. If you are in crisis and need to talk to someone, please make the call.

National Suicide Prevention/Crisis Hotline:

1-800-273-8255