The Hardest Year of My Life (And What It Taught Me)

2018 was the year that changed everything.

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Losing my father was beyond a personal tragedy; it was the division of my world into a notion of ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Grief is more than sadness-it is an uninvited tornado that rearranges everything in its path. There is no book, no advice, no amount of preparation that could fully scratch the surface or lessen the pain.

And as hard as that year was, it did give me lessons that I carry with me every single day.

1. Grieving Is Not at All a Linear Process

I thought grief was a checklist-type deal. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance-fill in one after the other and ‘poof’! The healing has taken place! But real grief is REALLY messy: On some days, I felt okay; on the others, it was all just a matter of mood swings, where the simplest thing would throw me back two months, a familiar song, a scent, an old voicemail.

That is the reality: grief never really goes away; one just learns to live alongside it. And that’s fine.

2. Everybody Grieves Different (And That’s Okay)

In the months following my father’s death, I became aware of one thing: everyone got through loss in their own way. Some people drown themselves in work, some…