Death of a young friend

How very sad - no wonder it feels as though your foundations have been shaken. And the fact that you know it must be worse for close family does not make your feelings any less valid or understandable.

Life can be really tough - especially when deaths occur that feel out of the natural order of things.

All we can do it take life as it is and find joy in those things that are beautiful around us.

It is OK for you to be sad.

I understand this as I was equally devastated when a friend's 17 year old daughter died in a car accident. It just seemed so unfair and such a waste.

I think it is quite normal to feel this way.

It is so very hard to make sense of it Gingergirl and I'm not sure you ever will.

Our daughter's best friend died when she was just 19 years old. I was asked to read at her funeral because I had been her Headmistress as well as taking her on school trips etc. I just couldn't do it, I loved her too much and even now I feel guilty that I couldn't hold it together for her. When you feel that upset you do feel desperate.
I only turned the corner about 6 years later when our DD gave her wedding bouquet to her best friend's mother as a symbol of their childhood friendship.

Yes, life can be very cruel.

So sorry. It's hard. My nephew died at 16, my brother at 24. Both times it was horrendous.

Two children died in my extended family. One, aged four, didn't survive an operation for a hole in the heart. Another, aged two, from Tay-Sachs.

They had very short but happy lives. It's some comfort to realise that they avoided all the potential pain, loneliness and disability of a longer life. They did miss all the happiness too but they were so very loved, protected and secure while they were with us. It's the quality of life that really counts, not the length of it.

I can’t make any sense of it either Gingergirl it’s so sad isn’t it. My sweet little 7year old granddaughter recently asked me “why isn’t the doctors medicine making my mummy better” I took the 10 year old shopping with her Christmas money and she told me she wished her mum was like other mums and then she could go shopping with her rather than me. I could cry bitter tears as I watch this young vibrant women suffer so much. It’s worse than cruel. I feel like you that her, my son, the children, her devoted parents and family have more right to be sad than me but I just feel so incredibly distraught and at times overwhelmingly distressed at having to witness such devastation being inflicted on lovely innocent people. I expect it’s the same for you. It’s Okay to be sad when we witness people suffer.

Thank you for your replies, which are very humbling. Sometimes it’s just not possible to resolve something, I guess, even though we try so hard to. I was reading a book recently and in it, was the phrase, ‘let the broken cup be a broken cup’. It’s very hard to just accept things when they’re so imperfect and there’s so much suffering, but there seems no way round it. We all just have to bear the pain I think.