It’s been seven months since my best friend passed away. It was the end of my universe as I knew it. But in other cruel and unrelenting ways, life and the world kept moving—every week since she passed, I have gotten dressed to go to the office, answered emails, sat in meetings, paid bills, and picked up groceries on my way back home.
Sometimes, the dull hum of the everyday is a welcome distraction, while on other days, thoughts of her consume all the energy I have. When I flew to California to attend the , a three-day women’s leadership summit filled with inspiring ladies killing it across industries (professional athletes! actors! business moguls!), that was exactly the case—all I could think about was the one inspiring woman I lost who would never get to achieve her dream of being a vet. I was curious: Out of every savvy, career-driven woman at MAKERS, was I the only one who felt like grief tied one hand behind my back? Did the Olympic soccer players and award-winning marketing executives who regularly took center stage at these fancy women’s empowerment forums ever feel this way too? Are they feeling it , just like me? And if so, how did they cope? I hoped they could offer me some tips on handling this thing that I thought would spare me until I was out of my 20s.
It seems self-explanatory, but it took talking to some Really Big Deal women at MAKERS who have grieved spouses, parents, and lifelong dreams to realize that because death does not discriminate, so many.
