When a family member dies....

....it rips a hole in your heart...your life...your sense of belief.

In a very real way, it ends life as you know it. Your life will never be the same again. The sense of shock, of grief, of gut-wrenching pain is so intense it's as if the rest of the world fades into the distant background. Your world stops.

It can be startling ---- painful, even ---- to see the rest of the world go on as if everything was normal. "Can't you see?" you want to scream. "How can you act as if nothing has happened??? My world has been shattered!"

When you lose a loved one, you no longer know what 'normal' is - particularly if it's a child or someone with whom you were still sharing a roof. Their absence, that gaping hole in your life, is palpable.

Adapting to the way things now are is a slow, painful process filled with pitfalls and moments when your loss feels as fresh as if it happened just yesterday.

Relatives and friends can try to help. But when Dad died in 2006, most of what people said or did in trying to comfort me made me wince.

And for the first few weeks, especially, it was jarring when people would ask, "How are you doing?" I wanted to say, "How do you think I'm doing? I'm doing horribly!"

It was painful and exhausting to even try to answer the question.

I'll never forget the one long-time friend who asked me, about 6 weeks after the funeral, "So, are you about back to normal now?" When I said, "no," he acted as if I was doing something wrong.

As if losing a parent was like spraining your ankle.

A friend of mine lost a niece to a horrific, senseless traffic accident this past week. She was only 6. There was nothing anyone could do to save her, though they tried desperately.

Everyone close to her is understandably devastated. I find myself wishing I could say something to ease their overwhelming pain.

But what words can help? I'm not sure there are many.

In such times, I guess it's the ministry of presence that is the most powerful, through a hug, or holding a hand, or performing a simple household task or errand so they don't have to.

It's always a difficult journey when we have to say goodbye to a loved one, no matter how many times we've had to do it.  And it can only be managed a day at a time. Sometimes even just an hour at a time.

It's the cycle of life, they say. There's something to that, I think. Those who have endured such grief can be helpful for those who have freshly entered that dark, seemingly endless valley - simply because they've made that walk themselves.

It seems to be a natural way to have some good come out of something so painful.