There are all sorts of losses people suffer- from the small to the large. You can lose your car keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assisted living, or have a child move overseas, or see a spouse vanish into dementia. Loss is more than just death, and grief is the gray shape-shifter of emotion.

Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aidbeing ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbellyof a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times Istayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that Iwould not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that myfather worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to comehome to a house that felt too big for us.

The thing about death is that we're all terrified of it happening, and we're devastated when it does, and we go out of our way to pretend that neither of these things is true.

There are five things we need to say to people we love before they die…: I forgive you. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Goodbye.

There is something bleak and barren about a world that is missing the person who knows you best.

Not everyone understands how you can spin two lassos at the same time, one of hope and one of grief.