What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Live every day as if it is your last, because one day, you will be right.

How do you deal with grief?  Well, there's not a textbook that will tell you.  No one can tell you how to deal with it, or how you might deal with it when it comes up.  

I've experienced a lot of death and loss, and I can tell you, each time, it's different.  You have a different relationship with people, your last memory of them is different, and you will be around different people at the time.  I wish it was predictable; I wish that every time someone close to be died, I would know exactly how I would feel and when I would start feeling better.  

For me, the worst part of it is feeling like I have to feel a certain way.  Sometimes, I want to talk about it.  Sometimes, I just really wish everyone would stop talking and leave me alone.  Sometimes, I want to think about it, sometimes, I just want to pretend it didn't happen.  All of these responses are totally normal, and they're okay - but lots of people don't understand that.  They think that their way of grieving is the right way - whatever that is.

I think the thing about death is that one day, you wake up and it just doesn't feel so bad.  It doesn't feel good, but it also doesn't feel like it's so hard to breathe.  Some days, you go backwards.  Some days, you almost forget that the person isn't there anymore.  Somedays, it's hell.  But little by little, it does get better.  It's hard to think of when you're in the midst of it, but one day, it won't feel so bad.

It's harder to deal with if the death was unexpected or shocking.  If you know someone is slowly dying (like they have a disease or illness, or they're old), then you can sort of resign yourself to the fact that one day, they won't be there anymore.  If you didn't know, like it was a baby who died, or if the person died very suddenly, it's horrible.

There have been some days when I really didn't think I would recover.  There have been some people that I have lost who were literally a part of me, and they didn't ever get a chance.  How can you get over a death like that?  I guess the answer is, you don't.  It will get easier, but it will never be okay.

The more I have experienced death, the more I realised that it makes me stronger.  It's still never a nice thing to experience, but honestly, it does get better.