She can't take this pain away

Grieving is a fucking paradoxical feedback loop, apparently. I never really thought about how it would affect me if she died, even though she once asked me. She talked about dying a lot, in hindsight, not that she wanted to, but as if she knew she didn't have long. I told her I didn't think that death affected me as much as it did some others. What did I know? The only people in my life who had died were grandparents, a mother-in-law, and a few (not very close) friends. These were not people I looked forward to coming home to, slept with at night, shared my dreams and hopes and fears with. They were not intimate providers of comfort and solace to me, or constant sources of inspiration.
That's the paradoxical part of it. The only person who could take this pain away is the person who died. That makes it even worse. I want to call out to her to help me, and she can't answer.