The Ones We Love Never Really Leave Us

It hurts. Loss. Death. Disappearance.

In whatever way you categorize or rationalize the lost, it hurts just the same. It feels just as final, devastating, and overwhelming in the moment you realize that love has gone. Away. Whether by choice or by fate, we struggle to cling to the memory we fear instantly begins to fade.

It is in this moment that I tell you, fear not. The ones we love—truly love—never really leave us, because in their life, when we loved, they became a part of us. And though some may argue
that we lose that part of us when they depart, I see it that part of them actually stays with us.

They exist in the little things. They exist in the eye color of their siblings, in the dent in the car, in the laugh of their children. They persist in the same details of life we never really appreciated before.

Look around. Soon you will discover that love all around you. True love engulfs you, it becomes
part of who you are and never lets you go. And though they may be gone in person, they will
never truly leave us in spirit. You are not alone. Never forget that. So love, love fully and love deeply.

Please don’t be afraid. Because those who are afraid are the ones who never let themselves
love, and if you never let it in, you inevitably let it go.

At the end of the day, however, I realize that in the same grace that keeps our loved ones with
us, we are doomed to learn that the ones who haunt us never really go away either.

And I suppose for that I can only resort to the paraphrasing of a familiar quote: we don’t have a choice in life on whether we get hurt in life, but we do have a choice in who hurts us.
Do with it what you will.