For some reason, WordPress didn’t save the original draft for this entry. I had written a whole thing about how every death of a loved one feels like a supernova, with the result being either a black hole or a neutron star. Had some clever insights on spaghettification and pancake detonation and how scientists must like using cute terms like this to lighten the mood a little bit. Then life happened (or ADHD, or avoidance, who knows) and I had to leave the entry half done. I had the metaphors down pat, but had not gotten to the personal part just yet, telling myself I’d finish it shortly.

I didn’t finish it shortly.

Maybe some part of me was hesitating because I knew I’d had to delve deeper into the inexplicability of ceasing to exist. I was struggling with feelings I had never felt around death. Everyone else I lost before had lived such long lives, and they were okay with leaving because they had loved so much and done so much. I lost a person in college who was once close to me, but we had fallen out and lost touch for years before he passed, and while I felt the weight of the loss, I did not feel his absence. But at the start of 2026, on the day my husband and I celebrated our 13th anniversary, we both lost a dear friend. I had known her for around 18 years, but he had been her friend for much longer. It was the first time in my life I experienced a loss that tangible, that close, and a life that young.

I opened my blog today to finish my article and found that it had not saved everything, but I wasn’t upset about having to start from scratch. I was more upset by the fact that for me to write something fresh, I had to revisit those thoughts and feelings‚ ones that had already begun to tuck itself safely away at the edges of my mind. I had to sit down here and remember that a beautiful human has gone on to heaven, and wrestle with what it all means.

Death doesn’t make any sense because the change is not immediate. It’s the most final and permanent thing and yet the concept doesn’t match reality. With everything else, when it is gone or is taken away, you will know because you feel it. When a cup is emptied, it will feel lighter. When a bulb goes out, a lit room goes dark. When you stand on the shore, the waves take with it the sand around your feet and you will sink. Everything else physically changes something when it is taken away, but it is not the same with death.

When a person is gone, there’s no shift in the weight of their presence. There’s no tangible change in reality except that they’re not visible to the naked eye. The space they used to take up still feels occupied. You can still hear the sounds they used to make. the imprint they left on your life is still there, but they are not. None of it feels like it makes any sense and yet we accept it as fact; they are gone, and life goes on, until it’s time for ours to end.

On the car ride home from our friend’s wake, my husband and I were quiet in the car. It was late, but the road home was still full of vehicles; people trying to get back home to their lives. I turned to him and said that maybe a person doesn’t feel like they’ve left simply because they haven’t yet. Science tells us that energy cannot be destroyed, only changed or transformed. Every physical body creates a ton of energy, and maybe when we die, it takes a while for that to transform into something else, or to leave the space it occupied, or maybe we fly around a little bit, not sentient but connected to the people we love and maybe we make our last rounds before we go. I am a christian, and I believe in eternity with God or without Him, and after death we go to one of those two places. But what if before then, our energy, our spirit, stays just for a little bit, until the people we love are ready to let us go?

Maybe. That was all he said. And that was all I needed. I wasn’t really looking for an answer, because I knew it wasn’t possible to get to one. But he knew that the only way I come to terms with anything I am wrestling with is by talking and writing. I just needed to say all of those thoughts out loud, to remind myself that our final resting place isn’t on any physical plane of existence. I was asking all of these questions that couldn’t possibly be answered, but I had to have faith that the things that don’t make sense in this world will resolve eventually, and to accept that the minutiae of it all was none of my business. Still, it helps to say it out loud, my personal healing balm.

Despite the pain it causes, death is also beautiful because it reminds us to live. It reminds us that all things are ephemeral. It reminds us that really, all we have is now. It asks us to take stock of our life and the things that we hold on to, the things that take precedence and matter most to us. One of my favorite verses in the Bible talks about this specifically—about how our lives shouldn’t be about acquiring stuff on earth, but the things that matter beyond it. Like love, faith, friendship, grace, forgiveness. Things you cannot touch but weigh so much more than gold. My friend’s life was so full of that. People had so many stories about her, about how much of their life was going to change now that she was gone. About her kindness, gentleness, her endless chatter. At the end of her days, her comfort and peace came from knowing that God was with her through it all, and that He was going to take care of her family. Her life may have been short, but it was such a beautiful, adventurous, full one. I’m so blessed I was a part of it in my own way.

Death may be a mystery, but it is not one I fear. I know that life doesn’t end here because of the love, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. There’s a lot of things we’ll probably never get to answer while we’re here on earth, but here’s what I do know: wherever you are right now, you matter. Your life matters. I hope you live it like it does.