In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. — Albert Camus

On Sept. 11, 2001, in the early morning hours I could hear the stirring of my fiancée, Bobbi, a flight attendant for American Airlines, standing at the dresser in our bedroom on Cape Cod as she readied herself for a work trip to Los Angeles. She did not kiss me goodbye that morning, letting me sleep a bit longer.

I was in the middle of looking over the materials for a presentation when the phone rang. It was Bobbi, calling me from her cell phone at 6:30 a.m., as she was about to board Flight 11. Typically, her moods improved as the day wears on but this morning she was bubbly and cheery early. I was confused until she told me she had just drunk a large Starbucks coffee. I wished her a good flight and told her I loved her. She said: “ I love you too. Talk to you in LA.”

A short time later I was putting materials into my briefcase, getting ready for work myself. Off in the corner of my home office I had the television going with the Today show on. I stood to leave when out of the corner of my eye I saw what looked like a small plane hit the World Trade Center. I thought it odd and immediately realized that perhaps a person or two might die in such a crash. Then the Today show cut to a commercial. I waited before leaving, curious about that small plane. Coming back from commercial break, on television the second plane hit.

What I did not know then was that I had just witnessed, live on television, the murder of my fiancée with whom I had shared a life for seven years. The evil and hate that now defines our time became personal. Back then I did not know that there was such an aggressive force out there that glorifies death and forgets innocents.

Bobbi was 38 years old, a vibrant Spanish woman with a Basque ancestry who was raised in Los Angeles. She paid her taxes, followed the rules and loved life. She was like so many million Americans that day — she simply went to work — in her case as a flight attendant for American Airlines. Terrorists prey, as we know, on the innocent.

Fourteen years later, my journey through grief continues.

I have learned along the way that in our culture we are not good at admitting grief, perhaps thinking it taboo or embarrassing (although it is a normal reaction to loss). And when we do admit it, many turn away, perhaps out of fear that it might happen to them. But grief is a part of life, and recovery from loss must be lived through. I am reminded of a scene in the movie Shadowlands when C. S. Lewis attends the first faculty gathering after the death of his wife. He is given the advice, “Life must go on, Jack.” Lewis responds dryly, “I don’t know if it must but it certainly does.”

No one who goes through grief remains the same, in my opinion. And grief is an awfully big adventure for one person to manage. We need companions for the pilgrimage. The Spanish call those who accompany grievers acompanero. A companion listens all the way to the end of our silences as well as to the end of our conversations. Listening is intensely more valuable than giving advice.

Still, grief is a lonely place. It’s important to empathize with a person who has suffered a loss, as opposed to sympathize or over-identify with them. It is a fine distinction but an important one. Sympathizing manages to convey “I feel sorry for you,” which is passive and unhelpful. Over-identifying is presumptuous. Its message is “I know how you feel.” It shuts down a person’s ability to feel safe mourning with you. Empathy conveys a desire to understand and a willingness to be taught by the person you hope to comfort. Another unhelpful (however well intentioned) approach is the so-called abandonment orientation — let’s be strong, buck up, you need to keep busy, there’s nothing we can do about it.

No matter how you grieve, your “grief print” will be as individual as your thumbprint. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that we all grieve in our own ways and on our own schedules. Grief is not linear, it’s not predictable and it’s anything but smooth and self-contained. Someone did us all a grave injustice by implying that mourning has a distinct beginning middle and end.

Only in North America do people use the words closure or resolution when talking about integrating loss into our lives. It stems from impatience in our culture — we are done, let’s get back to normal. The fact is you reconcile loss, you don’t resolve it. And different circumstances evoke different grief reactions.

My outlook today is best summed up in this quote from a husband who lost his wife and two children in a car accident: “I want, at least, to be in places where joy is happening. Then, if there are any extras, I can take a doggy bag full of joy home with me for tomorrow.”

It did take time for me to discover that it goes with the territory of living in our human skins, with hearts that can break, bodies that can fail, minds that can despair — that there is a silver lining, a gift you discover from the darkness and loss. Something emerges. You can learn to live again. I planted a Cherokee dogwood tree in my back yard a long time ago in memory of Bobbi. I noticed that its bare branches now have blossomed. It is as beautiful as she is. She will never be replaced and she will never be forgotten.

As Helen Keller said: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of overcoming it.”

Wayne Nichols is an Island native, group consultant, personal coach and avid triathlete. He lives in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.