I don't think it's true either, Allison. What I think IS true is that He doesn't give it to us, but that He stands with us in everything, and offers his unending strength to help bear what we cannot bear alone... and that each time we draw on that strength, we receive blessings so rich that they are what we keep forever from the experience, not the hurt.
I've PMed you about my own loss... well, I came to a day in my own immature faith when I heard someone going on about giving ourselves to God. (It was a preacher I had come to grudgingly respect.) I wanted to respond wiht a gift, I really did, even though I felt like doing the opposite. All I had to give was pain... it was all I HAD at that time, and I had.... so much. So I said rather defiantly one day, "OK, if you want me to give You all of myself, I give you my pain." I thought, what a shitty gift to give. So I was thoroughly surprised when the answer came. It was, "Thank you, so much. It's very precious to me. It is exacly what I most wanted from you and I treasure it." I'm still thinking about that one, but I became a new person by giving that gift, and now I have joy to give instead, most of the time, and tasks he sets me, I give those too.
Sometimes I think what I gave was my willingness to FEEL, my being in pain because I had not chosen to just numb out... and that this willingness to feel led me to be open to Him from then on.
I don't know where you are in your spiritual journey right now-- wouldn't presume to know. But you asked us what has helped us in our own times, and that's what I can share. I want you to know I have been admiring your loud protest about this loss, your heaven-wide scream that it hurts, that it's awful, that he was who he was and should not be gone. That's how I "hear" you in my heart. I admire it. A man such as you describe could not pass from our world without someone who knew him well making a Very Big Deal about it. The stars should scream, it's such a loss. I admire you giving it voice.