Back in 1997, I never thought of her as a widow. We were on the cusp of adulthood, about to graduate from the high school that brought us together.

We didn’t run in the same circles but had friends in common.

It was March of that year when tragedy struck our school. A beloved classmate lost his life. He was just a classmate to me, but he was her person, the father of her child.

Life happened, and all of us from high school went our separate ways. Thanks to social media, many of us were brought back together to catch up on the last 10, 15 years of our life.

It was there on Facebook, watching her grieve, live, love, and move forward that she unknowingly laid the foundation for my own grief that would strike a few years later.

The Love Remains
She grieved and she grieved out loud. Though more than a decade had passed since the death, the love she had for my late classmate continued to radiate from her Facebook posts. Before it became the rallying cry within the widow world, she was living it: Love Never Dies.

Grieve Unapologetically
Living with a piece of your heart missing is devastating. She openly and honestly shared her pain – whether through pictures of them or social media check-ins from the cemetery. She talked about him often and seemingly dared the world to question why she wasn’t “over it.” She already knew what I would have to come to learn: There is No Getting Over a Loss.

You Can Live While Grieving
One of the things that stuck out to me as I admired her strength from a distance was that her “sad” posts could be followed up by pictures from a concert, party, or family get-together. She could post about a great time out with friends, and a couple of days later, share a reminder of all she’d loved and lost. It was Grief 101: You Learn to Live Around Your Grief.

Dating Doesn’t Mean Forgetting
One day, a photo of the new man in her life popped up on her timeline. I was genuinely happy for her. Stupidly, I expected the posts about my former classmate to stop. But they didn’t. Tucked between all her posts of falling in love were tributes to her first love. I remember thinking it was so odd seeing her post about two different men. If only I’d realized that in just a few short years, I would be blogging about loving two men: my late husband and my current partner. She was right: The Heart Expands.

There Can Be Another Great Love Story
Before I was widowed, I remember wondering how her boyfriend – who eventually became her husband – must have felt about her posting about her child’s father. Did he feel threatened, even though her love for him was very much apparent to those of us on the outside? I imagined that it must have taken someone with a heart of gold to acknowledge her pain and love while understanding that it took nothing away from their story. Having been widowed for seven years, I know that to be true. It takes a special person to love someone who has lost a spouse or partner. Their union taught me: Love isn’t a Competition.

I credit my peek into her world for being able to navigate much of my own widowhood – knowing everything I was feeling and experiencing was “normal.” I am forever indebted to her.

This widow who came before me is also the reason I continue to share my story. It is my hope that one day, the next wave of widows will remember an article I’ve shared and know that it is indeed possible to get through the rawest stages of grief and move to a place of healing.

Kerry runs a support group for young widows and widowers venturing back into the world of dating and is a contributor to Open to Hope. She is the author of “Letters to the Widowed Community” and “The One Thing: 100 Widows Share Lessons on Love, Loss, and Life.” Her articles on widowhood and grief have been featured in HuffPost and Love What Matters. She’s also the host of the Young, Widowed & Dating podcast.