My dad passed away eight months ago and I am still grieving.
I may not be in the same emotional state I was the day he passed, but his absence still weighs heavy on my heart.
I hesitated when it came to writing about this, but I had a change of heart after witnessing one of my classmates being ridiculed. They were being reprimanded by a friend for not being fully over the passing of their loved one. They were being told that it had been two years and that they needed to move on.
There is this misconceived notion that a person should be OK after a certain amount of time has passed after a death. Most people expect you to be sad immediately after the death of a loved one, but what onlookers fail to see is the inner toll that grief takes on a person.
I will never fully understand another person’s grief, and they will never fully understand mine. No one has the right to pass judgment on another person’s grievance. No one has the right to tell someone what they think is the “correct” way of dealing with a loss, regardless of whether they have been through a similar situation or not.
For those of you who have not experienced the loss of an important person in your life, consider yourself lucky. Please don’t see this as me being a martyr or looking down upon you for not having experienced this sadness. I just hope a lesson of understanding can be taken from this, so people such as my classmate won’t be judged or told they are grieving incorrectly or for too long.
There is no exact timeline for a person experiencing grief. There is no list of steps a person can go through to rid themselves of their sadness
At first, it was difficult for me to find purpose in a world where my father no longer existed.  Thankfully, that changed.
I miss my dad every single day. I don’t think it is a feeling that will ever leave me. He continues to be a huge part of my life even though he is no longer a tangible force I can see.
I have come to realize my father was far too stubborn of a man to ever allow something as miniscule as his own death to keep his presence from being known on this earth.
He is behind that annoying voice in my head nagging me to get a head start on my classwork. He is alongside me, yelling at the television screen, every college football day. He is the driving force behind me to continue my education and to follow in his footsteps and make something extraordinary of myself.
Losing a loved one is something you deal with for the rest of your life. It isn’t something you can wake up one day and just be over. Some days will be harder than others, but remaining positive is the most important thing you can do to feel some sense of normalcy again.
Instead of waking up every day with an overwhelming feeling of sadness hanging over me, I wake up every day feeling grateful.
I’m grateful a world where our loved ones no longer exist, is a world we will never truly have to endure. They live on through our memories and our accomplishments in our own lives.
They may have left us too soon, but forever would have never been long enough to have them.