It all happens so suddenly, this thing they call “loss," as an attempt to soften the blow. Though you know it is inevitable, nothing can prepare you for this feeling of pain, emptiness, and sadness. Everyone says you would not want us to be sad, to move on with our lives, but there is no avoiding it. Everyone shows grief in different ways. Anger, crying, silence, frustration. Me, it seems that I cannot blink without a tear falling down my cheek.

From the moment you left this Earth, an emptiness has settled within us all. I find myself surrounded by “it was for the best”, “I am sorry for your loss”, and “she is in a better place” as if this makes any of it better. I find myself missing the little things that I never knew were important until now. Loss is funny like that, making the big things seem unimportant and the little things the most important. While this feeling of grief becomes a bit fainter each day, little reminders send it reeling back. A smell that vaguely reminds me of you, seeing a faint orange which was your favorite color, or the ring on my finger that was yours makes my heart clench.

There are too many things we were supposed to do first. Thanksgiving dinners, Thursday night phone calls, you seeing me turn my tassel three years down the line, and tears in your eyes as I say “I do”. The tears fall for these lost events and conversations, laughs and stories, meals and memories. I am sad for myself, my family, your husband, and most importantly my mother. This sadness seems to go on and on, an endless tunnel of darkness, until the realization hits.

You are not gone, I mean not really, not fully. It would tarnish your name to believe that. You are here with me, with my mom, with my family, every single day for the rest of our lives. The family dinners, phone calls, conversations, and stories will never be forgotten, whether or not you are here to make more with us. You are still present in the memories and your family members. Your bright blue eyes found in your first grandson, your love for travel and language in your granddaughter, and your caring nature in your youngest grandson. Your daughter exemplifies your motherly love in everything she does, emulating the thing you did best, loving your family unconditionally.

Though not present corporeally, humans live on through their descendants, their friends, all of the people they have touched while here on this Earth. While not everyone believes in an afterlife, I know that I now have one more guardian angel looking down on me from somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. Death is undeniably painful, excruciatingly so, but lessens slightly with the belief that guardian angels are out there, somewhere in the wide expanse that is our universe. I know that death cannot be the end for how else would you hear me saying “I love you to pieces” as I blink away another tear?