There’s this burning ache… it wells up and my throat begins to close, short of breath, I panic… just as I’m able to take a deep breath, the tears fall. I try to catch them, conceal them, hide them from the world. I try to be okay. I am okay. Will be okay… right?!?!  Massive pain… a void that seems surreal, impossible, yet it’s so piercing… how can it be this way? How can someone we love be with us one day, one moment, one breath… then be gone? How can we stand by and watch someone slowly drift from our grasp and dread the moment they too are gone?…