I lost one of the best friends I have ever had recently. She died December 1, two days before the anniversary of my mother’s death. I jokingly called myself the middle child because I was between her and her kids in age. She was my friend and her kids are my friends. When I had kids, they automatically became her godchildren. My nephew-son was her nephew. She lived beside my extended family for years, and we became family. My sister lived across from her house at one point in time. Her immediate family became my family, and her extended family became mine too.

When someone like that leaves your life, it leaves a huge void.

There is no gentle way to describe it. No poetic phrase that fully captures the absence. It is a gap; wide, unexpected, and painfully quiet. A space where laughter once lived. And what laughter, she had the best laugh ever, one that you never forget. A space where routine conversations, inside jokes, shared glances, and silent understanding once existed.

When you lose people like her, you ask God why.

Why take someone who was a fantastic human?

Why take somebody who made the world better just by being in it?

They are not easy questions to answer. I know that. And sometimes, if I am honest, there are days when no answer feels good enough anyway.

Today makes sixteen years since I buried my mother.

Sixteen years.

Time does dull the pain, people say, and it does. The sharp edges soften. The weight becomes more familiar. You learn how to carry it without collapsing under it. But the pain never truly disappears. It just changes shape. It settles into you. Quiet. Patient. Waiting for moments like this to remind you it is still there.

And the same questions I asked God about my friend, I asked about my mother.

Why?

Why her?

Why then?

Why take someone who loved deeply, gave freely, and anchored so many lives?

Grief has a way of reopening old wounds while carving new ones. It stacks losses on top of each other until you’re standing in a life that looks familiar but feels permanently altered.

And then comes the question no one prepares you for:

How do we fill the gap?

Do we even want to?

Because filling it feels like betrayal. As though moving forward somehow means moving on, and that feels wrong. That gap represents love. It represents connection. It represents something real and irreplaceable. Maybe the goal isn’t to fill it at all.

Maybe the gap is meant to remain.

A reminder of who they were.

A reminder of what they gave.

A reminder that love leaves marks, not scars to hide, but spaces that prove it existed.

We don’t replace people like that. We can’t.

What we do instead is learn to live around the gap. We build our lives with it present. We honour it. We protect it. We let it teach us how deeply we are capable of loving.

And on the days when the questions are loud and the answers are silent, maybe that’s enough.

Maybe the gap is where love continues to live.

I genuinely want to know your thoughts, and I’m sure others do too. Feel free to comment 👍🏽, but if you’re not comfortable sharing, please reach out to me through any medium. I’d be thrilled if you could share something, anything, and let others know. Your comments help me understand your perspective and often present a completely different view on the topic. They could even inspire another blog. 😉 And you never know how your comment might benefit others. Remember, life is meant to be lived, and you should always strive to live your best life. #lifeisforliving #liveyourbestlife #gratefulforlife #faithgreaterthanfear

See you next Wednesday at 8:00 p.m., Bogotá time.