It’s been one hell of a year and I know I’m not the only one who will be glad when it’s over. I will welcome 2016 in, with open arms.

I recently had a conversation with someone around time, the New Year and how I felt about all of it. He said that he doesn’t put any reference on one year to the next. I do but didn’t always. There was a time when the New Year meant just another day to me. I’ve never stuck to and rarely have any New Year’s Resolutions.

But, when someone we love dies, and especially when it’s sudden or violent, we seem to count the time in which they left. We can’t help it. I asked my shrink why, once, and she said it’s because some people put a time-limit or time-frame on grief. They think at some point in ‘time’ we will start to feel better and we lead up to that. Apparently it’s not how it works. Grief has its own time dimension and we are not in control of it.

Lots of people left this world in 2015. We always miss those whom we love and are not with us, any longer, around the holiday time/birthdays, the most. It doesn’t help that their birthday just happens to fall a day before Christmas, either.

I never got to spend a birthday or Christmas with Brian. I am grateful, though, that there is a new person in my life whom I will get to spend Christmas with. I’m hoping that when his birthday makes an appearance in Feb., that he still likes me and I’ll get to share that with him, too.

All of this doesn’t take away from missing those who aren’t present in body, any longer. Last week one of my colleagues lost his father…another colleague passed away from an unexpected heart attack and shocked us all. Both on the same day.

Even if it’s somewhat expected (and let’s face it, at some point it will be – none of us are getting out of here with our bodies, alive) the rest of us simply have to mourn, miss, and cope with the absence. Until, it’s our turn, of course.

I take solace in my belief that we DO go on and not only that, but check in on the peeps still left here on Earth, often. I remind myself of that every time I gaze at the bottom shelf of my book case and spy those who’ve gone on that I love. I wave…say hello…tell them I love them and know they’re around me. It doesn’t stop the tears but it softens them.

I’m coping. I’m learning to live with it as my shrink said that I eventually would. I’m learning to be okay with life the way it is and allow others in so that I can move forward and find joy, peace and maybe…if I’m really lucky…Love.

I don’t know if it ever gets any easier. I don’t know how I’ll feel in one or ten years from now but I do know that I’ll always find a way to cope. Time doesn’t heal…it just doesn’t. What it does do is put things into perspective as we get on with it. It lessens the pain, somewhat, but it doesn’t take it away.

What heals, is other people that stick it through with us. Other people that are still here on this little blue and green globe. People that need us, love us and count on us. Other souls, just like me, dealing with grief, daily…and others who are simply there because we need them to be.

It’s just easier coping, together.

XO to all of you…