I have always been the kind of person to dread one distinct feeling in my stomach. The one where your heart sinks and your insides become knotted. 

It doesn’t come often and not many things tend to make me upset, except for one. 

Whenever that feeling arrives, I’m brought back to my 12-year-old self, woken up by my mother who said she had to tell me something. As I walked into her room and climbed onto her bed, I figured it would be about something dumb such as my poor attitude or grades. 

Then she uttered those three small yet giant words and I met that heart-dropping and stomach-turning feeling for the first time: “Daddy passed away.” 

It was like I had fallen off the playground and had the wind knocked out of me – only I hadn’t. I was not on the playground. I had not fallen. I was in bed and crying alongside my mother, whom I had never seen crying before. 

Except now, five years later, that feeling is not as painful or sharp. It comes in brief waves, lasting only a few seconds at most.

However, it is there, and will always be. 

It comes out of hiding when someone mentions alcoholics and their supposed “stupidity”. It comes in the form of guilt when I catch myself calling my adopted father, John, Dad. It comes when I think of my many friends with two birth parents that know everything about them.

Only my dad knows nothing about me past the age of twelve. My favorite color is no longer green, as he would remember, and I don’t seem to find swimming or Disney channel as exciting anymore. 

That feeling will always be with me. It will always be hidden away waiting for the next chance to be noticed. I experience it when thinking of what it would be like to see him now after five years of eternal silence. 

What would I tell him about? Would we finally be able to really know each other, more than just favorite colors and songs? Or, perhaps, would he be sitting here with me right now as I decide what I should write my next Liberty Bell article on? 

The answer to all of these questions is nonexistent because he is not sitting here with me, and in fact, he is not here at all. 

That one event that caused this eternal silence introduced me to the unsettling and unpredictable feeling that will always be somewhere inside of me – even now, sitting here with that same feeling, it shows me that hard times lead to the joy ahead. It shows me that life is never to be taken for granted because my dad didn’t have the luxury to wake up one day, but I do. 

While growing up I’d only focus on the negative, but this stomach feeling reminds me of the shortness of life. Things like sunsets seemed rather mundane to me, but now are moments I see my dad in. This brings back the painful stomach feeling, but also brings joy. 

I never dread that feeling now. It shows me that not only do I have one life to live, but so does everyone else – it’s their first time living as it is also mine. The stomach feeling has made me a better person. 

I am no longer an envious, selfish, or angry girl. I am joyful. I am kind. I am always smiling, and if I’m not then I am someone who finds joy in my sorrows, because I know they will lead me to more joy. I love others even when they don’t love me, because I know that deep down everyone has that same gut-wrenching and stomach-twisting feeling that I do.

This isn’t me saying that grief is an easy thing – because it certainly is not. Initially I carried anger and resentment. I would not believe anybody who said that there is a “good” result of the tragedy that had taken place. 

But in changing your outlook, you can change the outcome of how you react to hard things. Look for (and appreciate) the good in the bad and dwell in those feelings. Learn to always see the joy in darkness, because that joy can shine a new light in your life that you never thought would be possible.