'I thought I knew what grief was. Then I lost my 14-year-old daughter to suicide.'

I am grieving.

My grief is so huge that I have to make myself breathe. I literally feel it in my bones. Every moment of every day, every muscle in my body aches wishing for a different reality.

My dad died suddenly when I was 17. It was awful. It rocked my life. It no doubt made me a different person. I struggled with so much.

But it did not compare to when my 14-year-old daughter died suddenly 28 years later.

Image: Supplied.

The amazing, beautiful being I created was in too much pain to live anymore.

When two weeks later a family member said "grief is grief", I was shocked. Grief isn't grief. The dark, endless abyss my husband and I are falling through is not the same as losing your centenarian mum. Grief is as an individual as the person who experiences it and the person that dies.

I know, without question, that the best days of my life are behind me.

I always wanted to live a large life. I rebelled against being like everyone else. I travelled the world repeatedly. I lapped up every experience possible. I moved away from my family to a big city to live a different life than what was familiar. I quit teaching to become a travel blogger. I lived my dreams.

I remember clearly my grandmother-in-law talking about how her best days were behind her when she was in her 90s. I promised myself I would never feel that way. I would always fill my life with joy, new adventures and things to look forward to.

But then I found myself here.

Watch: You have to let the wave of grief take you. Post continues after video.

It's impossible to fill my future with hope like it was before I had experienced all-encompassing, absolutely life-shattering grief.

When someone dies of old age, you love, grieve and miss them, but you also get to celebrate everything they did. You can find some peace in the fact that they had a full life.

When they die at 14, it's so hard to celebrate anything. While I am thankful for every moment of the 14 years, 8 months and 24 days I had with my daughter, the spectre of what could have been looms large.

How can I be truly thankful for a life that was barely lived?

She never finished school, she never had a job, she never fell in love, she never had kids, she never did so many of the things that we thought we could take for granted.

My grief is endless because my love for my daughter is endless. There will always be a burning hole of love and loss in my heart.

Image: Supplied.

Somehow, I have to learn to keep breathing, to keep moving, to keep loving with this hole. I have to, for my sons.

But this hole means I'll never be whole. I'll never have the bright future I did before.

I have to live with knowing that I didn't save my daughter. I wasn't enough. And while I learned to do that when my dad died, I have zero faith I can do that now.

I was her mum. Her last line of defence in this world. I didn't defend her enough. I didn't protect her enough. I didn't hold her enough. I love her with everything I have, but it wasn't enough.

So grief isn't grief.

Sometimes, grief damages your soul and can take years to accept, but you can still live a big life. And sometimes grief is something which stops your life and makes it small and hard forever.

Sharon is a travel blogger based in Melbourne. She is the proud mum of three kids, including her amazing daughter, Soraya, who didn't live to see her 15th birthday.

Feature Image: Supplied.