What do you do right after you find out someone you love has passed away? Do you go up to your room and cry? Do you let the tears stream down your face, knowing they aren't anything but useless? Do you call your family members and friends and grieve with them? Do you hear their heartbroken voices that match your own, while wishing everything could be back to the way it was before? Do you sit there and not know what to do? Do you resume life the way it was minutes before the news hit you? Do you feel hopeless and aimless, as if there's no purpose to anything anymore? What are you even supposed to do?
How do you take the news that they aren't living anymore? How do you nod your head, swallow the lump in your throat, and absorb the message? How do you blink your eyes without feeling them well up with moisture? How do you use words to respond to the unthinkable? How do you leave the room, step into the world again and then be expected to carry on? How do you cope when everything and everyone around you has stayed the same when your world has been severely altered? How do you accept it and move on? How do you take the news?
Where do you go after understanding what has happened? Where do you find yourself retreating to, hardly finding the strength to take yourself there? Where do you lay your head down and let your tears cascade carelessly? Where do you doze off to sleep, knowing that when you awake, the horrid nightmare you faced the previous day was indeed reality? Where do you find comfort? Where do you find a home when the only one you know is nothing but an empty house? Where do you go?
Why do horrible things happen to good people? Why do wretched, emotion-shaking moments have to be part of life? Why do temporary goodbyes become final ones within a few seconds? Why does the last time you see someone have to be exactly that - the last moment you and the other person share? Why does death have to exist, when no one even likes it anyways? Why does everything happen for a reason, when no logical or positive one exists? Why do the sadnesses have to exist at all? Why do horrible things happen?
When are you expected to move on? When should you put on a brave face, and spare everyone else from your grief? When is it appropriate to put the past behind you and face tomorrow like it's a clean slate? When do you look at their photograph and not feel a horrible pang of sadness? When do you not feel guilty for smiling, knowing that their lips won't ever move again? When do you find yourself remembering them for their good, happy life and not for their terrible, untimely death? When do you move on?
What do you do after someone you love has been dead for a while? Do you ever sneak up to your room and allow yourself to cry? Do you let the tears stream down your face, not caring that they're useless? Do you call your family members and friends and share with them your less painful but constant grieving? Do you hear their comforting voices and begin to accept what has happened? Do you sit there and find ways to distract yourself from what has happened? Do you resume life to the way it was before the tragedy happened? Do you begin to find hope and reasons to live as if you're alive again? Do you find a purpose to life after all that has happened, knowing that the pain has formed strength? What do you do?
Author's Note: This is dedicated to the best Grandpa a person could ever have. Always remembered, never forgotten.
