Life will often play its hand in such a shitty way when we are least expecting it.
On April 29th of 2016 (a little over a year ago...) I lost my mom. She passed at 39 years old of a heart attack. This was an extremely devastating time for my family and I. She was the most beautiful, generous, loving individuals I've ever known. She would help anyone who needed it. If you needed 2$ and she only had one she would figure out a way to get you that extra dollar. She would give the shirt off her back if it actually came down to it... I've seen her do it.
Now that you have a generalized description of my mom let me tell you exactly what I learned from her passing. In life you create your own opportunities. In tragedy we have the option to go down one of two paths.
This first path is the path of woe... woe is me. Typically what most individuals do who lose someone extremely close to them is they go down this path. Don't get me wrong, for a few months I was in this direction; this path leads to substance abuse, overuse of paraphernalia in a negative way. Either isolation from the world or surrounding yourself with the wrong type of people. This path more times then not leads to further sorrow, and a negative mindset on life. Opportunities are destroyed, relationships are ruined, and life seems to get grimmer and grimmer.
The second path... more often the not the path less traveled... Is the path that leads to excellence. In my moms passing is acted as a catalyst for my success. The hardest thing you can do in such grief in sadness is to forgive. Because of my moms vibrancy in life, I knew the last thing I could do with go down the path of woe. That isn't what my mom would want for me; so I learned to channel all that negative energy into things that would only further to produce growth. From reading more, to surrounding myself with individuals with a growth based mindset. As I progressively began to change my grief mindset to a mindset of growth I noticed that a lot of the sadness and despair I once had, had slowly began to leave. (Now don't get me wrong I will never truly be able to eliminate all the grief... but I can definitely suppress it).
In the year that its been since my mothers passing. I was able to write a book and grow a business designed to help people. Her passing was my catalyst. I want to succeed for my mom. Now don't get me wrong I would absolutely give everything and then more to have her back, but unfortunately life doesn't work that way. The only thing we can do during loss is change are perception and try our hardest to go down the positive path. I hope this article helps in any way shape or form. If anyone needs to talk more about it, I'm more then happy to talk further about my experience to help guide you to a better light!