When words are my enemy

I love words. If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time or know me at all, you know I love words. I usually like them best when they are carefully placed, properly punctuated and bound in leather, but I love words in all of their manifestations. Heck, I like reading the dictionary. It is fun and you never know when you are going to come across a new word you can intersperse into every day life. (The mocking can happen later, ok? Thanks.)
However, over the past year there are a few words that have become distasteful to me. I try not to use them at all, but if I must use them, I hesitate and do a lot of thinking before I do so.
The words?

"Suicide" and "dead."

(Actually, any variation on the word dead makes me go cold.)

I've had to use "dead" a lot this past week. I don't like it. I try to sanitize it by saying "lost" or "gone." But in my head, I still feel the emptiness of the word. Dead. Gone. Mostly I don't like it because of the grief it brings to the front of my mind. It has been almost a year, and I don't miss J. any less. The shock of it all still puts a lump in my throat and an empty space in my heart.
And I am reminded that life must go on. Life is, after all, meant for living. And while my heart cries for the life that was lost, I force myself to remember that death has an amazing epilogue. And though it doesn't make the pain go away, it makes it easier to bear.