Does it get easier(losing a family member)?

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I wish I could say that you get used to people dying. I never have and I don't want to. It rips a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want to “get used to it.” I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love that I felt for that person and our relationship. And if the scar is deep, then so was the love. Scars are the signs of a life well lived. Scars serve as an exhibition that you can love deeply and be wounded and that you can heal and continue to live and continue to love. Quite frankly, the scar tissue is often stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are only ugly to people incapable of seeing the love and memories behind them. Unfortunately, the result is that those people begin to view the emotionally scarred as “damaged goods” and treat every wound as a catastrophe; believing that somehow the wounded should be approached with the utmost caution. And that’s ok.

As for grief, you'll find that it often comes in waves. When the ship first slams into the rocks, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Every floating objects reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that once was, and is no more. At this moment, all you can do is float. You find a piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Sometimes it is a physical thing: a piece of jewelry, a picture or a Christmas ornament. Maybe it's a happy memory: a beach vacation, a first kiss or getting french fries on a road trip. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float and try to stay alive.

At the outset, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come constantly, barely seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is try to keep your head above the water. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come at longer intervals. When they come, they still slam into you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. And you never know what will trigger the grief. It might be a song, a painting, a white Jeep, a bag of chips, whatever. It can be just about anything...and then the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 50 feet tall. Or 25 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. After a time, you can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, a holiday, or landing at the New Orleans airport. You see it coming, for the most part, and can prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll keep floating.

Your family, your friends, the self-help books, your boss, Oprah…they are all very understanding at the beginning. But eventually, they want you to do something you just can’t do…get over it and move on. Then the clichés start coming in full force: “time heals all wounds” and “I know how you feel” seem to pour out of the mouths of those around you. But time doesn’t, and they don’t. Telling a cancer patient to “get over it” and telling the heroin addict to “just quit and move on” is an exercise in futility because both tasks are impossible. Expecting the same of those who are grieving is absurd. Grief is a unique experience for everyone; and anyone who claims to view grief the same way as you do is lying (to you and to themselves).

The waves will never stop coming. And once you learn that you can survive the waves, you somehow don’t want them to. And come they will. And you'll survive them, too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

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