If you have been around in life long enough to go through a few significant losses you know how much a part of life it is to learn to mourn and cope and honor what was but still find the courage to press onward.

From someone who has had many years of what feels like way too many losses, like a never ending parade with barely enough time to come up for air, before the next loved one passes on, I can tell you the moving forward is no small task.

Each loss becomes a new trigger for what has yet to be processed and accepted…. as if there were even time to do that in some cases.

Do any of you feel that way?

You absolutely must find that just-right balance between honoring the past and bravely facing the future with a different kind of hope.

You don’t do it by forgetting the past. And you don’t do it by ignoring your future.

My life over the last decade and a half has been filled with almost constant loss. Lifelong friends, mentors, family, close girlfriends, long-time boyfriend/best friend/partner, bonded animal companions and other deeply bonded friends I traveled through life alongside. All who, as it appeared to me, died years “before their time”. Too young and gone way too soon.

And, for the record, I do not consider the loss of a bonded animal companion as lesser than that of a human friend or family member. It is a deeply profound loss.

I can tell you how difficult it can often be to move on when you spent years, emotion, love, laughter and tears with the expectation and hope that the road traveled would be one traveled together for yet many years. And then it wasn’t.

I didn’t expect my 92 year old grandmother to live forever. But I did believe that Rico, still in his 40’s, would be there for years to come. I didn’t expect Jay, my mentor and dear friend, a grandfatherly figure, at the age of 80, a man who had mentored people like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and former President John F. Kennedy and who was himself mentored by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to live forever. But I did expect to grow old among my girlfriends, Maggie and Karen and Rhea who all left this world in the last couple of years, and way too young. I didn’t expect my wolfdog, Sasha, to live forever or really much beyond her 16 years. But I wanted her to.

The list goes on like a funeral parade of never ending heartbreak.

One expects to outlive their children. As we know, for many it doesn’t always happen. I expected to finish the incredible but abruptly halted conversation with Kobe, whose trust I had gained in a new friendship many years ago. First a court case, then a car accident, a few years of physical and emotional trauma and drama, related to the car accident, and needing time to heal.

Life at it’s most complex. A few more years of life and inconsolable losses until I finally felt free enough to come out of my self-imposed isolated prison and reconnect. But a horrific helicopter crash put a final period on one deeply felt, yet unfinished chapter.

I can tell you in all honesty that with each loss of a dear friend, human or animal, I wanted nothing more than to go there too. If you have suffered painful losses, you know! There are losses I still find it hard to talk about.

Life does not always give us what we plan or hope for. Death puts an excruciatingly painful finality on many hopes and dreams. Moving on can be as gut wrenching as the loss itself of your friends and loved ones. But you must keep going even while you mourn.

Without getting into the spiritual side of the “change of world’s”, I personally believe that our loved ones are not gone, just gone from this plane of existence.

As for our lives now, we owe it to ourselves, our sanity, our world full of people who are still here, to keep going with love and hope for a future of value and purpose.

So take heart. It is doable. It is a balancing act with grief and hope, endings and new beginnings. It can be done. And you can get there.

Simply and profoundly put, in the words of Vanessa Bryant, “Find a reason to live.” She is a beautiful example.

It is the best way I know to keep on…. And know that you are not alone!