Loss

It's never easy to lose someone because there's no way we can ever truly be ready. Even if you know someone's time on this earth is limited, you want to convince yourself that they'll be around forever. You want to believe the lie that you'll never have to say goodbye. You want to live in the fantasy notion that death won't come for us all someday. When the reality that nobody lives forever finally hits you, there are so many thoughts and emotions that need to be processed. There's the initial shock and disbelief, followed by the sobering acknowledgement of the permanence of death that hits you like a tidal wave. Not to mention the sadness that feels like it will last forever. It's both terrifying and amazing how powerful the death of one person is. The event in and of itself just consumes you and refuses to let you go. The whole world seems to stop and it's all you can manage to think about. The reason one death is so gripping, I believe, is because there isn't really such a thing as "one person". The person who died is someone different to everyone whose lives that person was a part of. So one death, really feels more like a thousand. The idea that someone's story has completely come end is misleading though. I believe this because even when someone physically dies, their story isn't over. They live on through the memory of those that they touched. Their story is continued to be told and they continue to affect those whose stories they were a part of. It's that affect that they continue to have that keeps their spirit alive in a sense. Loss is a long and drawn out process. I am well aware of the five stages of grief and loss, but I feel like those are sweeping generalizations. I feel like they are more of a general overview of the immense process of dealing with the loss of a loved one, then they are a step by step guide to the entire process. Everyone has a different process when dealing with loss. Everyone experiences the whole thing in their own unique way and you can't really boil that down into just five concrete uniform steps. Loss is a terrible thing, but it is a part of life. We will all lose loved ones at some point, and learning how to process that is a huge part of growth and our journey in life. Loss is difficult, there's no doubt about that, but we will all have to go through it in our lives. One important thing about loss, though, is that it reminds us to never take someone or something for granted. It renews our appreciation of everyone and everything that we still have in our lives.