I recently went back home to Gibraltar, Mich., for some family Fourth of July festivities, complete with barbecued bratwurst and fireworks. This was a gathering I’d been looking forward to for a while because while the town is small, the fireworks display is actually pretty decent and my family and I can watch them from our front porch.

My first days back home were filled with chattering about holiday plans and who everyone would be spending the fireworks with.

My sister planned to watch them with her boyfriend of four months — a picturesque romantic scenario, that turned into a nightmare for her when he broke up with her early that day. Suddenly, and understandably, she wasn’t focused on having fun.  She was focused on her heartache. Even when the two of us laid a blanket out in our yard to watch the vibrant fireworks show, her mind was consumed by the breakup.

When the fireworks began to explode across the sky, she said she was supposed to have been with him at that moment.

I couldn’t relate to the breakup, but I could relate to the sadness.  The only thing I could say, something that is usually frustrating to hear, was the pain would get better and, day-by-day, start to fade.

And the best way to speed up the process is to surround yourself with the people you care about and the ones who care just as much about you. It might be hard, but let them listen to you vent or listen to you cry, and let them offer their advice and embraces. Sometimes the most difficult advice to hear when you’re hurting is that the pain will eventually go away.

After all, “eventually” doesn’t take away from the fact that the pain is happening now.  I’m sure that just hearing the word “eventually” must have sparked some sort of annoyance in her. The hurt was much more pressing than the promise of a better tomorrow.

I’d been there myself. Hearing “it’ll get easier” in response to listening to my parents fight every night, or the first time a boy broke my heart, wasn’t what stopped my tears.  But the thing is, everyone who said those words to me ended up being completely right.

The pain hadn’t been permanent, and very rarely does it ever stay as crushing as it is the first day it’s inflicted.  That doesn’t mean that it always leaves completely — I’ll still be reminded of something that hurt me in the past, but the reminders are nothing compared to the freshly-opened wound.

Everything eventually passes, but in the deepest throes of heartache that’s almost impossible to remember.  But all pain, whether the loss is of a friendship or a romance or any type of relationship, will heal, even if it may take some time. The longer it’s dwelt upon, the longer it sticks around, though, which is why it’s important to focus on other things or people and keep it at bay.

And it might be hard to put into context when you’re upset, but as one door closes, another will inevitably open. You just have to go looking for it. Stick close to the people who care about you, until one day you wake up and realize it doesn’t hurt anymore — because, as they say, “this too shall pass.”

Casey Holland is a State News reporter. Reach her at cholland@statenews.com.