Sh*t.

How do I get my heart to slow down? Cold sweat... lovely, I’m already shivering from it. What time is it? 4:23 AM, you have GOT to be kidding me. If this starts up again, I swear…

This is what I found myself thinking after I had just woken up from a nightmare years after I thought I was done dealing with them. Just like how we’ve heard before, people grieve differently, I find that grief also takes its toll on people in drastically different ways. For me, it was nightmares; for you, it may be anxiety; or for your friend, it could be exhaustion from keeping themselves too busy to feel.

Regardless of how, the fact is, the death of someone you love has found a way to take its toll on you and there was no "right way" to grieve that could’ve prevented it. When you first lose someone, you think you’ve dealt with the hardest part and in a way you have. People told you that the pain goes away with time and to grieve as long as you need to, but with real loss the grief never leaves you.

Five, yes, even, six years now, I lost my best, pal who just so happened to be my dad. I won’t go into details, but for months after his death I found myself living in a state of terror whenever I would go to sleep at night. The nightmares seemed like they would never stop, night after night, but eventually they did. So I guess all of those consoling people were right, but simultaneously wrong. Even though I don’t have nightmares like I use to, every once in a blue moon, I will find myself in a cursing, cold sweat, and fast heart beating state caused by a nightmare I thought I was done with forever.

Years later and I’m here to tell you that this is what loss is really like. The overwhelming, bring you to your knees kind of pain and the toll of grief you initially experience when you lose someone will go away. It won’t consume your days or nights anymore and there may even be weeks when all you feel is happy, but it will be back. Not in a threatening, doomed prophecy type of way, but in a way that reminds you that you’re human. And also, reminds you that you’re strong enough to face the trivial challenges of life because you’ve already faced the hella daunting challenge of overcoming a consuming sadness.

I won’t lie to you and say that when this pain of loss comes back it won’t feel just as painful as the day you lost your loved one, but I will tell you that the pain doesn’t last. I can promise you that if you keep fighting and healing there will be times when you can talk about the person you lost and feel no sadness. For me, I love hearing my friends’ stories of their dads and I love sharing stories about mine. But also, watching a father daughter dance can have me crying in zero point two seconds. The pain of losing someone never heals enough for you to not feel anything, but it does heal enough for you to be happy again.

With the loss of so many beautiful lives recently, I know that there are a lot of people who are being comforted with the words “It will pass”, “Just give it time, the pain will go away eventually”, and “You just have to be strong for a little while.” The truth is the pain will in fact pass and it will go away eventually, but it will be back. You don’t have to be strong for a little while because strong is what you now are.

I’m here to tell you that it’s normal to feel grief again after those weeks of pure happiness. It doesn’t mean you grieved in the wrong way or didn’t give yourself enough time to be sad, it just means you are human. This is how human nature deals with loss, this is life, and this is how it works. It also doesn’t mean you won’t be happy again or that you’ll never be able to think about them and not feel so damn sad because you will. You will be able to think about them again, while wearing a genuine, face-splitting smile.

So, if anything, be thankful for those moments when the grief hits after you thought you’ve forgotten what it feels like because it’s humbling. It makes you remember to be thankful for those in your life now and it makes the happy times brighter.

Cheers to absent friends and cheers to friends with us now.