What do you do when you start to miss somebody who is dead?

Miss them.

Feel, grieve, cry. Know that the grief is the other side of love, expressing how much you value the deceased, and bringing them alive in you.

Thank them, talk about them, talk to them, learn more from your memories of them.

Say their name. Gather with others to remember them. Wish them well and invite them to move on.

You also have the option to not assume they are ‘gone’. Conservation of energy is a fundamental law of nature. Continuation of consciousness can be verified throughout life.

Sane societies don’t assume beings are merely material. In fact, the material aspect is the least real, the most changeable and ephemeral. You can verify this for yourself: the average person eats between 35 and 55 tons of food in a lifetime; the body is constantly changing, changing, changing; but the witnessing awareness has always been there, stable, unaging. The ‘I’ who saw the Grand Canyon at seven years old and the ‘I’ who experiences New York City at sixty-five are the same. That awareness has not aged; it is like an ageless mirror or movie screen upon which the whole story of life unfolds.

Finally, you can use the energy of missing and the poignancy of your memory of the deceased to better wake up to and understand your own impermanence and certain death. You can take steps to live well, and completely, today (not assuming that even another day will be guaranteed to you or your loved ones) and prepare to die a good death rather than one avoided, rejected, feared as if it’s a tragic surprise.

Talk about them. Reminisce about the times spent with them. Allow myself to be sad that they’re gone.

My best friend died in 2015. I miss her a lot.

Engage yourself in an activity or past-time that connects you with them.

suppress those feelings til you explode in anger at someone else.

Cry