Sometimes in life you’ll encounter an individual who makes your whole world brighter just because they’ve come into it. Some people are pure sunshine.

I’m fortunate to have met a couple of people like that at different times in my life, at times when I have needed their illumination in ways I couldn’t have articulated then. Having been so accustomed to darkness, their light was almost blinding. Without that light, the darkness that rushes back in feels crushing.

Grief doesn’t drain away like bath water; it ebbs and flows like waves on a lake, like tides in the ocean. This is true of all losses, including complicated ones where grief is intermingled with other pain. However, grieving the loss of a sunshine soul is different. Grief is the heart acknowledging that it has been permanently changed from another’s patience, faith, kindness, good humor, generosity, compassion, and love. Grief is the humanity that we must cling to when a loss feels utterly inhumane.

Our grief is proof that they lived, and lived well.

And so, I don’t want to wish grief away, even though it hurts so deeply. To wish it away is to wish for rain, when I know I’ll always find them where the sun shines.