It has been two weeks since my niece has passed away due to upper gastrointestinal bleed. Everything is still so vivid in my mind and I feel that things have happened all too sudden for me to even accept it.

She was still alright when I hang out with her two days before the incident. We went to the nearby supermarket and chatted happily. Never in my mind have I realised that that was the last time I will ever see her again.

When the incudent happened, she was lying lifelessly right before my eyes with bloods dribbling all over her nose and mouth. That was an image that I could never erase from my memory even though I have seen a lot of similar, if not worse incidences when I was doing my hospital attachments.

Perhaps the main reason was that she waa my relative instead of any other strangers that I have encountered before. Even though she was rushed to the nearest hospital, her heart had alreafy stopped beating and all attempts to restart the heart were unsuccessful.

When the doctor broke the bad news, I felt as if time had stopped ticking and we all were confused and angry and sad at the same time. Following the news, everything else happened very quickly, too fast for my mind to process them.

Her funeral was held while the rest of the family members who were informed about her death were coming back from all over. We all mourned for her for the next few days and she was cremated three days later.

To be honest, this is the first death that has a big impact of me and affected me  as I finally understand the feeling of losing someone. There are couple of things that I have learnt while I was going through this unfortunate event, especially ways to cope with loss of loved ones.

1. Everybody grieves differently.

Having said that, there is not a standard way of grieving. It varies according to people as some might take shorter time for the news to sink in while the others might need a little bit more time to process. Take your time to accept the fact even though you think you have already expected the loss. In all honesty, no one is ever prepared to lose someone they care for.

2. Talk your heart out

When I was mourning for my niece, I tried to suppress my emotions and kept everything within me. Then I realised that it was too painful and eventually I expressed my feelings to my family members. Many people feel that they should not cry, or be sad when dealing with death and they should just move on. However, it is bot a healthy way to cope with loss as grieving is alas a nature process.

If you want things to be private, give yourself some time and space to be alone and do whatever you want, be it shouting, screaming or crying. Some people find it helpful to write their thoughts out in a book or even talking to close friends and family membera as ways to express their feelings and emotions

3. Make yourself occupied

All too often, people will always advise you to keep yourself busy with daily activities as another way to deal woth loss so that you will not have time to think about them. Indeed, engaging yourself with things is one of the options but you need to bear in mind that you need to do things that you love. Otherwise, you will only end up in misery.

4. Time will heal everything

It is true that as time passes by, you will recover from mourning. As much as your heart hurts, you will eventually realise that irregardless you need to move on with your life. Life goes on even though it might be up for your loved ones and you cannot do anything to turn back the time. The only thing that you can do is to stay strong and continue living yours.

5. Remember your loved ones.

Even though your loved ones have passed away and no longer live in this world, that does not mean you need to stop remembering them. You can always reminiscing positive things that were shared between the both of you or even make a photo album about them and write down things that make them special to you.