No matter how much time goes by, no matter how much a person does to forget, or move on, the loss of a loved one is never easy. Growing up I never thought I would have to deal with loss as much as I have. One of the best pieces of advice I've heard was from a late night show called Madea who gets asked: "What do I do now?"

"Get up and go on with your life; It's alright to sit around and be depressed for a minute, cry about it, do whatever you have to do but don't stay there too long. Get up, and go on with your life."

Now the context of this is different however, I still think that it applies. There is nothing that compares to the pain of losing a loved one, distant or close. However, the best way, in my opinion, is to go on and do the things in life that make you happy. The loss may change the way that you think. For me, it completely changed the way that I go about my day to day life. I appreciate the little things so much more. For example, the smell of fresh rain on hot pavement, or the way the trees change color during the fall in New England, or just a hug, one of the really good and long hugs you can feel change your mood. Growing up, these things didn't impact me as much as I think about them now. At one point they were just things that happened, the rain used to ruin my plans, and the fall meant winter was coming. In the wake of a loss, everything changes. I now find myself standing in the rain embracing the water on my skin because I'm lucky enough to experience it.

A loss of a loved one has been described as many metaphors and analogies. For me. It's a typhoon. Massive waves at first that destroyed everything in their path. And now smaller waves that come from time to time, consuming my thoughts and feelings. And now, the world seems darker without them in it. It's even more difficult when the loss is unexpected and nothing but tragic. I often find myself wondering where I went wrong, where I could have stepped in, or just the simple thought "I hope they know how much I loved and appreciated them" and never being able to express that to them. Never being able to reach out to them anymore and being able just to say "I'm proud of you or I love you." We can hope that they know these things and hope that they went peacefully. There are certain songs and places I will never be able to return to without the flooding of tears. These are all things that are expected with the loss of a loved one.

Life is a series of events and it all comes down to how we deal with each one. In the wake of a loss, being sad, and being down for a bit is understandable there is no right amount of time that will make the pain easier, there is no right amount of distraction that will make it feel like they are still here. There is no right or wrong when it comes to mourning, but always remember to not stay there too long, get up, and go on with your life.

The biggest thing I have learned in the wake of a loss is to make them proud. Don't waste too much time being down, get up, and go do something that makes you smile. If you can't find something that makes you smile, go do something kind for someone else out of love for the fact that they can't. I have found that paying it forward really does make a difference, even if you simply buy a coffee for someone else, not only will it make them smile, but the people you lose will always be smiling down on you with pride. Making a difference for one person might spark a change, or make the world seem a little kinder. I feel everything more in my soul, I love so much harder, for now, I truly understand what it means when they say life is too short.

I will leave you with something that was said to me way back,

"And what happens when this gift we call life is over? Where do we go? What if we all become a star when we die? What if those little tiny lights, all those miles away are people that we lose every day? I think I'd like that. It's as if the people you love, when they die, never really leave. They can watch over you every night. Maybe when a star 'dies' and goes out, it means a person was reincarnated and they were given another chance on Earth. What if we're all just recycled versions of ourselves, and in a couple hundred or thousand years we'll all be reborn. Not us obviously, but our minds and spirits. Maybe that's why we feel deja vu… It's our mind remembering something from a past life. **** that would be insane…" -Zackary Bendig