When someone we love dies, their absence feels unbearable.

Especially if we saw, touched, or spoke to someone every day, their gone-ness (yeah, I just made up that word) is a sort of full-body shock—one that we suffer every time we go to connect with them and they’re not there. It’s something that the people around us don’t necessarily see or know to acknowledge but is happening for us inside all the same.

For the first few weeks after my mom’s death I kept waiting...