Thunderstorms are tricky. We're never certain when they're coming. We don't know how long they'll last. We don't know the damage they'll cause in their wake. It can be difficult to imagine the sunshine on the horizon in the midst of chaos. Grief is the same way. When we lose someone we love, it can be difficult to imagine life without them. How will we ever return to a level of normalcy after the storm of loss settles? How do we move on? Can we really move on? We have to remember to count our rainbows.

​We’re prepared from a very young age to lose. Small children are told not to lose their toys, that old people and animals die, and that it’s the lessons we learn from losing that help us become winners. We’re prepared, yet we still expect to win. When it’s something we can control, we feel insufficient when we can’t win. For the most part, losing is transient. We think it’ll last forever, but it doesn’t. Failure precedes future success. But what if our preparations were futile? No parent is ever mentally prepared to lose a child. I wasn’t. But I came closer to it than I ever want to be again in my life.