Grief is not pretty, no matter how you experience it. It’s also never the same between two people, but I believe it is generally agreed upon that it never really goes away. When someone first dies, in a way you are honored. You get special treatment. People tip-toe around you, and your bosses give you days off with no repercussions. But then the constant sympathy is overwhelming and it chokes you, and you just want it to go away.

But then it stops completely. People stop talking about your loved one. And they stop asking if you are okay. It’s like there is a time limit with how long it’s acceptable for you to grieve before it becomes uncomfortable or bothersome for others.

I read an article toward the beginning of the year and the author was writing about her father who passed away suddenly, similarly to my own experience. Some of the things she articulated summed up my feelings completely. One of the sentences that stuck with me was that in talking to people about your loved one, you are being told that “you are not the last living witness to the relationship you had with your father.”

Right after my dad died, one of the most vivid memories I have is of my family gathered in our kitchen for a meal. Everyone had a story or a remembrance about my dad, and all of them were about how his personality filled the room or how he always made people laugh. There was nothing more that I wanted than for people to share in the loss and remind me that he was as great as my memories told me he was. I wanted people to not let me forget.

But then people stopped telling the stories. They didn’t want to bring up the subject first in case it would catch me off guard and accidentally hit an old wound. But that wound is always there. And ignoring it and my dad only makes the wound fester.

Another realization this author brought me was the fact that because “my father died, our relationship died with him.” I never thought about death this way, but it’s true. When someone dies, we mourn not only the person themselves, but the relationship and memories we developed with them. “The inside jokes we had with them become fragments of a dead language” and no one will ever be able to speak that language with you again. It feels as if a part of you has died with them, because there will be no one else who will every know you the same way they did.

Today makes two years since my dad died, and I am finding new ways to explain or think through my grief. People say that it gets easier with time, but in a way, I think it makes it harder. Sure, the shock isn’t fresh, but the moments that are missed are more painful. My dad will never see what I end up accomplishing in my life, and eventually more and more people who surround me will have never met him. To me, that is worse.

I will always miss my dad, but over the past two years is has become a little less painful on a daily basis. One of my biggest fears is that eventually I will begin to forget little things about him. But I know I have my family to remind me.