Can you imagine finding out that all of a sudden someone you care about is gone from this world? I can. I think you can only know this feeling if you’ve lived through it. I lost a friend, and it hurt so much – but I know it hardly compares to what the parents of the children in Connecticut must have felt when they heard the news last week.

As an outsider, how do you tell a parent that their child was killed? As a parent, how do you cope? From my experience, accepting the situation is the first step, but it’s also the hardest. How can you accept that you’ll never see or talk to someone you care about? How can you accept that even though you saw them a little while ago, now you have to say your last goodbye? I think having to accept is probably asking for too much.

Coping with a loss is a process and like every process, it takes time. It’s okay to mourn and cry. It doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you human. I think that in this case, it’s best to think about all of the good memories and qualities and hold them very close to your heart. You will have to slowly learn to live with the feeling of emptiness that nobody else can fulfill. It’s hard, but you’re stronger than you think, and although the scar will remain, it will heal.

-Erica