I know I will see him again

How do people deal with the death of a loved one if they don't believe in God? Or life after death? How can you get over the loss of someone if you don't believe you will ever see them again? I never would have gotten through the death of my father if I didn't believe that he was in a better place, that I could talk to him whenever I wanted, and that I would see him again one day. It still took me years to get to a place where I was a (somewhat) functioning adult, but that was only through believing that he was always with me. I could never have coped with his absence if I thought that death was final and that he didn't know how I felt or that he forgave me for everything I was sorry for. One of my Dad's best friends was never able to come to terms with his passing because to him, my Dad was just gone. He blamed my Dad for dying and was the loneliest person I've ever known. I'm not saying that I didn't go through all of those emotions, but I could get some peace, some alleviation of that intense grief with the comfort of knowing he was with me. I suppose those who don't believe in God see faith in an afterlife as a coping mechanism, a crutch, that people believe in God and heaven because they desperately need to in order to come to terms with death. I believe that is true, but I also know that God is there and that there is a heaven. Faith is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it takes a very strong person to believe in something intangible. (I use the word intangible for those who don't believe. To me, with my experiences, God if very tangible indeed.) It takes a very strong person to be able to step out from everything that we can see and feel and put their faith in something that is beyond our understanding. I'm about to go on and on about faith and that's really not what I intended to write about. I guess I'll just end by saying that my heart goes out to those who really think that death is the end. It must make a really terrible time in one's life so much harder.