Most of us are cruising along through life blissfully unaware that darkness is waiting just around the next bend, never believing that an unexpected tragedy could strike us.

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-- That’s what happens to people that you see on the news, not our nice little family situated in a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. It’s all going to be fine and dandy, and we’re going to live happily ever after. Only sometimes, that doesn't happen. Sometimes, you’re the ones who have that tragedy strike. When you are facing an unexpected death, you might feel like you don’t know what to do next. I know I didn't have a clue.The Unexpected Can StrikeI’m going to share an unfortunate example of what I mean by having the unexpected strike. It happened to me. I was on vacation with my husband, and we were going to go on hike. We had plenty of water, some food for a picnic, and we planned to have a great day. We were going on a trail that looked like it was going to be an easy day hike. The good news is everything was going great until we were on our way back. My husband slipped, fell, and hit the side of his head on a rock. He laughed it off and so did I. By the time we got back down to the car though, he was feeling nauseous and lightheaded, so I figured he should go to the ER just to be safe.I took him to the emergency room, and the last time I saw him alive was when he was going down the hall with the doctors. The fall and the blow to the head had caused bleeding in his brain. Just like that, he was gone. The light of my life extinguished like a match in a storm. Let me tell you, I was angry at the world. I was angry with myself, believing that somehow this was my fault. If I’d done something different that day, the outcome would have been different. This self-blame lasted until my mother in law took me aside and told me that I was going to go crazy with the blame and loathing. She was right, but it did not make it easier to have to know that he was gone. She was a rock for me, as was my own mother. The good news is their strength helped guide me.They showed me that the good news is that life does go on. Even though you feel as though you are going through the worst time of your life right now – and you are – it is not going to be like that forever. You are going to be able to move forward and still have a great life. Just because you are happy and trying to move onward does not mean that you do not love your loved one who passed away, and it does not mean that you are tarnishing the memory of that person by living again. It’s okay to smile.