I know how you're feeling. The anger, confusion, frustration. My grandpa passed away the day before the first day of classes this semester. This is my first winter without him, and I don't like the idea of him not playing football with us on Thanksgiving or watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. I'm gonna miss him joking with me and always making me laugh. I hate the fact that Christmas is not going to be the same anymore. So I understand the pain you're feeling. That first week of class, I cried every night in the shower and never really knew how I was supposed to tell people why I missed class the Friday I went to his funeral.

But whomever you're missing would not want your holidays to be ruined. Enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve. Laugh about old memories and then make new ones. Play football, eat way too much, and lounge around. Open presents, read your favorite book while drinking tea, and decorate the Christmas tree. But at the same time, it's alright to be upset. You may need to cry and say a prayer with your family. I'm still not 100 percent sure what Thanksgiving and Christmas will look like, but that's OK. I know that everyone will be excited to see each other, and my four-year-old cousin will be as cute as ever. The girls will look fantastic, my favorite boys will be very handsome, and I'm super stoked to eat my family's black bottom cupcakes.

Coming to terms with your loss is a process. Healing from something of this magnitude is like the time I scraped my knee climbing over my grandparents' fence: after a while, it was no longer a wound, but the scar left behind will always be there. Through this time since he passed, I always have to remind myself that in the face of death, we are in life, and that for every tear, there is laughter.

So just remember that our life is a new normal now. Don't try to live like nothing has changed.