We tend to accumulate a lot of stuff in life. We come into the world as infants with no baggage -- emotionally or physically. As time goes on, people, things and situations come into our life, and our natural inclination is to attach ourselves to all of it, whether or not it continues to serve us.

Lola taught me how to handle adversity and Lucy taught me how to love unconditionally. Lola taught me to laugh and Lucy taught me to cry. She taught me that it's okay to love someone so much that when they finally die, you feel that your heart is broken.

Based on my years treating patients who have dealt with the loss of a loved one and my personal experience with my husband's death, I know there are many complicated emotions that one can experience when dealing with late-stage illness and death.

You can't outrun grief, I'll tell you that for sure. It is an inconvenient truth if ever there was one. Is it better today than it was three years ago when I got that nightmarish, surreal phone call?

Grief can do funny things in your body. Depending on our personal makeup, grief is often interpreted as a stressful event.

We do not know why bad things happen to good people, but we can do what we can to help, and to remember that underneath those dark clouds, the sun is still shining.

Memories are like gold nuggets, nuggets with sharp edges that eventually wear smooth. During the first year or two of grief, memories may be painful, only highlighting the loved one's absence. However, over time, a shift begins to occur.

In the aftermath, it is important to remember that our grief is as unique as our fingerprints. Each of us will have our own normal reactions to the abnormal events that we have just witnessed.

It can be so hard to find love in our hearts, to imagine peace, to practice compassion, to have faith in a benevolent universe after terrible things happen. But for as long as we hold on to anger and fear, we add to the darkness in our own hearts and in the world.

How do we wake to a new day and move forward? What do we say to ourselves, to each other, to our children? Sadly, no explanation can make sense of this mindless devastation. Nonetheless, there are some things we can do to take care of ourselves and to take care of each other.