Grief is a fickle bitch. There’s nothing new or revolutionary about it. Every person who ever lived has experienced it in some manner. Sometimes the weight of it is crushing, and it seems like some of us have a bigger load to bear. Each loss is another brick viciously laid on the last, a tower that grows more unsteady with each fresh heartbreak.

This one is particularly cruel. Perhaps it’s the suddenness of it, or the horrible injustice. It’s murder and it isn’t. But there’s no denying that it’s life-ending and life-changing and cruel. Nothing will change that, and nothing will take away the wrongness of it.

I’m not skilled at taking the bad with the good. It’s hard to tell sometimes if the pain makes us stronger, or if all the little cracks will eventually shatter us. So we’re left with discomfort and the messy pain of not knowing. Life isn’t supposed to go this way.