I never know what to tell someone who is grieving from the loss of a loved one. How do you make someone feel better when someone they love has died.

No words seem appropriate, no words seem to do the trick. It is almost hopeless at that time. I just don't know what to say... except that I know how it feels, because I lost someone to death as well, heck, I almost lost myself to it once. But that doesn't make the pain any less.

Death is the eternal break up. We fight and we argue and we quarrel and we are bitter, and we hold grudges for years and years, and then suddenly it's all over. And there is nothing we can do about it. Death doesn't consider if someone loves you and they don't want you to go. It doesn't care if you have a million things to do before you are ready. It just takes, until nothing is left. That's probably the most helpless we can be in this world.

But what's amazing is that how easy it is to forget. How easy it is to completely dismiss the idea that any one of the people we hold so dear to us could be gone in the next second. How we can so quickly and eternally lose someone to something so trivial as a heart attack, a traffic accident, a senseless shooting, or even a suicide. To breathe, and not know it is your last.

The last time I saw him was in October five years ago. We sat on my favorite bench, but we weren't making any good memories. He was there to tell me what he had decided. He was there to tell me that he chose her over me, and that was it. He didn’t give me a chance to ask any questions or to get any closure. He didn’t give me a chance to cry and yell at him. He just walked right out.

The next time I saw him was five years later at a funeral. Our paths would have never crossed again if it weren't for the death of someone we both knew. Funerals have a way of bringing everyone together. They expect that we put everything else behind us and just get along even if it is for only that day. So I did that. I got along just fine with everyone, including him. I knew he was more devastated than I was from this loss, and I couldn’t help but feel sadder for him than I did for losing a friend. When we looked at each other, I could tell that he was surprised to see me there. Perhaps he didn’t think I would actually come, or perhaps he just didn't think about me at all. But once he saw me, he couldn't stop looking at me. So I walked up to him. We shared a few words about our loss. We tried to console each other, but we couldn’t really. How do you get over someone’s passing? You can’t really. You just learn to live with it.

We are wired to cry and feel sad, and regret many thing we have done when someone we know dies. We cry for someone who is no longer with us, and quite possibly is in a much better place than most of us. We cry when that someone has found their peace, when someone has lived and seen, and is now finally resting. We have a hard time letting that go, but we don’t ever care to shed a tear for the living. We kill something inside each other everyday, and we don’t mourn that loss. There are ways of dieing that don't end in funerals. Hearts break, lives change, even completely destroyed, and we don’t even shrug.

It doesn't matter if he feels sad, or guilty, or even if he apologizes. It's all done now. I died then, and he can't bring me back to life for himself again. I can't unfeel what I have felt.

I suppose he'll just have to come and cry at my funeral too.