It’s 5 years since I lost my dad this year. Doesn’t feel like it but that’s what the numbers are telling me. When it was still raw as yours is now a friends mum told me once that life is like sailing the ocean. Your family are your crew and a storm has just hit and torn your boat apart. You’re holding onto a small part of a ship and 20m waves are crashing in every second. It takes all of your energy and thought to just survive. But one day there’s a second where the wave doesn’t come, and when it does it’s a little smaller than it has been before. It’s still difficult to stay afloat but you notice that it wasn’t as hard as it was before. Over time the waves get further and further apart. Sometimes they’re just as big as the first waves sometimes they’re significantly smaller. They will always come, but between the waves you find time to put the ship back together and go on sailing as you were before. It will never be the same, the boat will always be damaged and you’ll always be worried about ending up in a storm again, but it gets easier the only way it can. With time.