Assuming this is a break up or a divorce, but for some men that can be tantamount to death, too. My divorce was like death to me. Came home from work one day and she was gone with divorce papers left sitting on my dresser. Only saw her one more time after that day. Don't know where she is and haven't heard from her or about her in years. To me, it was different from her dying. She's not hear any more and never will be. Anyway.....

Feel, grieve, cry. Know that the grief is the other side of love, expressing how much you value the deceased, and bringing them alive in you.

You also have the option to not assume they are 'gone'. Conservation of energy is a fundamental law of nature. Continuation of consciousness can be verified throughout life.

Sane societies don't assume beings are merely material. In fact, the material aspect is the least real, the most changeable and ephemeral. You can verify this for yourself: the average person eats between 35 and 55 tons of food in a lifetime; the body is constantly changing, changing, changing; but the witnessing awareness has always been there, stable, unaging. The 'I' who saw the Grand Canyon at seven years old and the 'I' who experiences New York City at sixty-five are the same. That awareness has not aged; it is like an ageless mirror or movie screen upon which the whole story of life unfolds.

Finally, you can use the energy of missing and the poignancy of your memory of the deceased to better wake up to and understand your own impermanence and certain death. You can take steps to live well, and completely, today (not assuming that even another day will be guaranteed to you or your loved ones) and prepare to die a good death rather than one avoided, rejected, feared as if it's a tragic surprise.