I lost my young sister five years ago. She was fifty when she died. I was devastated. She died with me her husband and another sister at her side. I will never forget her. The pain is awful at the start it goes ease but you never forget. Kind regards. 

Hi there, I'm really sorry to hear about your sister. I think the pain will get worse before it gets better. I was at my worst at 5 weeks, I was in a terrible mess I really hit rock bottom. I'm only 3 months in and the pain is daily, your life has changed and will never be the same but you will learn to get through the days easier than you are now. Of course this was just my experience and we're all different in how we cope and grieve. Look after yourself.

Like any wound the pain of losing a loved one gets worse before it gets better, eventually it will heal but you will never forget the person and the memories that you have of them. My mum died of cancer back in October and she was just 49, she had primary breast cancer and secondary bone cancer in her legs, spine and neck. The pain from her death was and still is immense but believe me, it gets easier! Not a day goes by when I don't think of her and I talk to her All the time, I have little chats to her and imagine the reply and what she would say... 

I found that when I was helping my step-dad and family plan the funeral it wasn't as hard as it was immediately after her passing as I was making everything at the service perfect for her and I felt I was making her happy, it will get easier for you and just think of all the happy times you had together. And whatever you do, don't stop talking to her, just because her body has gone her soul is always there and she can hear you  and see you all the time! Take care. 

A friend sent this to me and it made a lot of sense 

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.