Granted, this has not always been the case.

In 2013, within six months, I lost my roommate of eighteen years and my Sister-in-Law, who was also my best friend. He would have been 62 and she died a month past her 44th birthday.
Neither had been ill, and the only thing they had in common was that they both smoked and drank too much.
I neither smoke nor drink, but I've got a bunch of physical problems and a lifelong fight with a major depressive disorder.
Somehow it didn't seem fair that they died and I didn't.

I fell into months of self-loathing and crying jags. I could find no justification for my existence; no reason that I should continue to take up space on this planet while these two had been virtually ERASED without warning.
Every time I spoke to my brother, I heard the grief in his voice and I felt such GUILT that I could not get out of bed for days at a time.
I know this was irrational behavior. I had nothing to do with either of their deaths, nor could I have done anything to prevent them; but I could not get past the feeling that I should have been the one who died.

This last year seems to have been unending.
I counted time only in terms of how long they'd been gone: I didn't 'celebrate' any holidays; every occasion seemed incomplete knowing who was missing, who would NEVER celebrate again.
I forgot what it was like to feel 'normal', albeit, as 'normal' as I ever was.
Then, one day, I woke up and I didn't think about them the second I was conscious.

I felt around in my mind for the ache, like you do with your tongue for a ragged tooth, but it was gone.
The break in my heart had begun to heal.
For the first time in months I didn't start the day wondering why I was alive or wishing I was dead.

I had my coffee, watched my dogs sleeping on my bed, and I realized I was OK with being alive.
It has been a "long, dark, tea-time of the soul", but I made it back.