When someone you love dies, you know how hard it is to grow through that. No matter how long it's been. If you're intent on making beauty out of the pain they left behind, but you still can't help thinking how good it'd feel to trade everything away, for just a minute more with them, here's a poem for that.

Death has a way of making you come face-to-face with your life. No words can capture the entirety of how loss shapes us. But until then, here are six truths I’ve learned through my own personal experiences of love and loss, grief and growth, survival and surrender, and 5 years of writing on the topic.

I wrote this letter to someone I love who's struggling to change their life. Maybe, it's for you, or maybe it's for someone you know too. This letter is a simple reminder that there's hope. That love can be rekindled and small changes can make a big difference. Share this with whoever you think might need it.

Grief isn't linear; more like the tides or the seasons. The more familiar I get with it, the more I see that everything in life has its seasons... including YOU. Each season of grief has its own lessons and challenges, its own weather and mood. And each one has its place. That's one thing I've learned from loss so far.

If your soul is tired, this is for you. Maybe you just lost someone you love, or you've been carrying around a heavy grief for years. Maybe you're tired of trying to be someone you're not, or trying in vain to inspire change in someone else. I get it. That's why this is one of the best prayers I know: "Please help."

There's something about seeing things grow, about seeing them sprout up from seemingly nowhere at all. Read these quotes about planting seeds, because it's always the season to sow a little good karma. To love better. To be in charge of your own life. To be part of all the beauty you'd like to see grow.

Whether you want to get sober, stay sober, or take a sabbatical from substances for a while, I hope these positive affirmations for sobriety inspire you to love your decision, and life, even more. This is a reminder that feelings are transient and thoughts are malleable. It’s YOU who's powerful.

Judith Espinosa wrote The Awakening to help others who've endured great loss, illness, and heartbreak of any kind. People like you and me, who'd rather lay claim to this new life than live the rest of our days being victims of our circumstances. I’m happy and grateful to be able to share her poem here in full, with you.

Whatever's flipped your life upside down this year, now you're here. You've been planted somewhere new; actually, something new has been planted in you. A seed. And you decide how you nurture it, water it, weed it, let it root & bloom. You get to decide, here & now, how it unfurls & how you grow with it, through it.

If you lost someone you love, how you live now is your greatest contribution to the love you shared and still share. That love is in every step you take, intimately tied to your joys & your dreams. It's a tattoo that can't be removed, an eternal river running through you. Grief lasts a lifetime, but love lasts forever.