For someone who has gone to more funerals than she can count, I know a thing or two about loss.
It's never easy. Sometimes you expect it and other times, it's like your whole world has been flipped upside down. It feels like your heart has been ripped from your chest and that you will never feel whole again. Truth is, you won't be. But, you will learn how to take the emptiness and fill it with things that help you get through the day.
You're never prepared. There's nothing you could ever possibly do to be ready to lose someone you love. It is by far one of the most difficult things you will ever go through and there's nothing anyone could ever say to make it any easier.
Each day is hard. You will learn how not to show your pain but only you will know that it is always there. You will master how to fake a smile when all you want to do is cry and you will hold back tears more often than you don't. Occasionally you will break down but you never allow yourself to let it consume you and you don't let other people know you're struggling to smile.
It makes you afraid. You constantly worry that the people you still have are just suddenly going to leave. The last thing you want is to go through the pain of losing someone again. You can't stop wondering who will be next which is terrible to think about but you can't escape the constant fear of loss.
It makes you angry. It's not everyday but every once in a while, you get angry. You see others spending time with a loved one and it triggers the pain you try to bury deep down. You realize that you will never be able to spend another moment with your loved one and it's not fair. You would give anything to spend just one more minute with them but you can't. There's nothing you could ever do to bring them back and it makes you angry.
It makes you appreciate everything you have. Having someone taken away from you makes you realize everything and everyone you still have. It wakes you up and makes sure you don't take anything for granted. You gain a new perspective and a new appreciation for the people in your life.
It makes you stronger. The strength you will gain from going through loss is indescribable. Loss defeats you but it also strengthens you at the same time which is extremely hard to understand unless you've gone through it. Some days you feel like you can't get out of bed but other days, you feel like you could conquer the world.
It changes you. Loss makes you look at life in a totally different way and it makes you think about things differently. The more loss you go through, the more it changes you each time.
