Losing A Loved One

[Emiliano]

I'm very sorry to hear about your mom. The way you described it as strange scary and traumatic is how I feel too. I've lost three people who were very close to me, and each of them left major voids in my and my family's lives. None of their deaths were expected and I can remember feeling that sickening and surreal feeling when I found out.

The deaths themselves are traumatic, that moment of loss. But what I struggle with so much is the absence. How life moves on without them. It's a difficult thing to articulate, but I think people who have lost people they were close with know how I feel. I relate with feeling guilt too, definitely. Even when there's no reason to feel that way.

I don't deal with death very well, and I know there's nothing that can be said that helps. All I can offer is to let yourself feel all those emotions. Share them with others or keep them for yourself in private, but allow yourself to mourn. I think that's important rather than to try to numb yourself to the emotions. There's so much pressure to be positive and accept condolences and smile when people try to make you feel better. But it's ok to be sad too.

This is for further down the line for you, but I've written a lot of letters over the years to the people I've lost. That helps me. I'm not religious, death is final to me, so it's not like I imagine it as a way to communicate with them or anything like that. But it's more for me to just put feelings out of my head and on paper, and to in some way still honor and think about them.