There are things in life you don’t want to be good at. Death is one of them.

After all, we tend to become good at things we either have a natural knack for or that we learn through repetition. No one has a natural aptitude for death, so you only become good at it through repetition. Which is a pretty crappy way to acquire this particular life skill.

My lovely niece, only 34, died in a car accident in May. It was terrible and senseless and truly awful. The family all planned on seeing each other at her upcoming wedding, not her funeral.

Yet, it was my time to shine. I know how to select a funeral home and what information they need when. I can write an obituary like nobody’s business. I’m really, really good at creating “In Memoriam” videos. I can run interference and keep the trauma dumping out, not in. I’m a natural event planner anyway, so a funeral is just one more event — and because I tend to stuff emotions way, way down, I can Keep It Together, even when my heart is breaking and be strong for everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved my niece fiercely, miss her like crazy and am so sad she’s gone. I also helped support my grieving sister and family while helping to plan a lovely funeral. Both things can be true, because I have a lot of experience with funerals and death. Seriously, I could have a new career as a death doula.

Since 2013: my sister, mother, grandfather, grandmother, dad, and niece, all gone. And of course, my beloved Charlie.

Seven years, now, since he died. What’s weird is that despite how good I’ve become at the business of death, I still suck at the legacy of death, grief.

I’ve shared a lot of my experience here, on social media and with friends. People I love have lost those close to them, and I always say, here. Here’s what I know. Take it, if it helps. Here’s the survival guide I’ve put together, the map through this land no one even wants to visit, but we suddenly live in. My journey isn’t your journey, but maybe I can help.

But I’ve never gotten good at grief. There are no tasks, no to-do lists, no action items. There’s just living with a pain that’s completely commensurate with the love you felt and so often, utterly overwhelming and all encompassing.

It doesn’t get better (which is the awful secret I never tell anyone right away). The pain just becomes more … manageable. You learn to live with it, like a physical disability. “Oh, this knee is never going to work right again and will always hurt. Gotcha.” The emotional equivalent is, “Oh, I’m always going to grieve this loss and nothing can make this death meaningful or better. Gotcha.”

Not all losses are this way, to be fair. It’s a mix of bitter and sweet. I miss and grieve my sister and mom, for example, and think of them often, but it’s not debilitating. While I wish they were here, I have accepted that they are gone. My grandparents lived long lives, and I have so many treasured memories to look back on.

But other losses aren’t something you get over. I’ll never get over losing my 10-year-old son. It just isn’t possible. My heart has reshaped itself around the gaping hole torn in it, but it has never and will never fully heal. I can’t imagine my sister will ever be the same after losing her daughter. The loss you can’t heal is different for everyone, but I think every one has at least one. (So be kind to people and give them grace; you never know how they are hurting or who they miss.)

So. Seven years on, and I’ve figured out that I’m good at death, but not grief. I haven’t found a language that isn’t cliche. I can handle the instance of loss, but not the persistence of it. And that’s the bitch about grief; it persists. All you can do is try to figure out how to carry it and still live, honoring the one you lost.

Because I miss Charlie now just as much as seven years ago. And I always will.

Charlie, ready for anything.