Young Lives Lost too soon

[Pomlover2586]

Recently in our community a 13 year old girl passed away from Leukemia. her family was well respected and plays a prominent part in our education system.

Ever since her passing I keep hearing about other children passing....ranging from full term still births to 17 year olds killed in car crashes.

Have any of you ever had a child you've known passed away? What were the circumstances? And how did you move on?

And no -none of these deaths were immediate family members or even extended. Just young lives in our community that touched my heart and were ended too soon.

 

[Pomlover2586]

Maybe not?

 

[sissybells]

I guess maybe no one is really answering because they might not want to drudge up any sad feelings. It's so close to the holidays that maybe they are having a hard time and don't want to think of being sad. I do hate hearing about lives lost to soon. It does make me rethink things if I am getting frustrated with DD. I just give her a hug and thank my lucky stars for her.

 

[Justanopinion]

Our community was hit hard by one particular death this last summer.

Celeste was from a very well liked family. Lived in this town her entire life. She was a varsity cheerleader all 4 years of high school and very active in school and church. I don't remember the exact cause of death. But she got sick in April and was gone in early July.

Thankfully, she was well enough at times to attend her Sr. Prom where she got Prom Queen as well as walking the stage for graduation.

The FHS Class of 08' is not the same without her. She will be remembered always. She affected the lives of everyone she knew and even those she didn't.

Her family did something wonderful for her friends that some will never forget. This was a tragic loss to this community and to the young people here. At her viewing instead of having to look at her body, her parents decided to do a closed casket, it was white. They had sharpies there for the kids and the kids wrote notes to her and signed all over it. It was absolutely beautiful. I believe it made it easier for some to say goodbye and they don't have that last memory of seeing her that way. All they have are the good memories and good times.

 

[chager]

I will step up here. Unfortunately I have been to many funerals for young people. Starting just after graduation when a close friend was killed when she fell while hiking. She was 17. A couple years later a 16yr old I knew was killed in a car crash. I had known him since he was 11. Last year the 17 yr old DD of a friend was killed in an auto accident. The hardest one was on April 6 at 3am. The school secretery, Billi, and her 16 and 11 yr old children (Aimee and Caleb)were killed in a house fire. It is one thing to deal with the death of a young person as an adult but when you have to try to help your child deal with the deaths of friends it is even harder.
How do you deal with it? Well everyone is different. We relied heavily on our faith. A Bible verse we hang on to is "Jesus wept" It just reminds up He is weeping with us. Over time the hurt lessens, but it never completely goes away. SOme days can be really hard. All the firsts...the first birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving,Easter, vacation, football game, etc. are really hard. For DS watching the movie Shutter was hard. The last time he saw the 16 yr old from school was at that movie. It was the night before she died if I recall correctly.
The hardest question he asked was ..why? ... and there are no answers for that. In the case of the fire we know that a revamp of how the 911 system works for cell phones was started and more training was started for operators. (Such as, tell the persons to get out of the house and once they are out THEN ask the address if it needs clarified. )
Sometimes it helps to change something little to help get through the times. For instance the area the school secretery stood was moved for the rest of the school year last year. The numbers the kids had for sports were set aside this season. By no means are any forgotten. We now see ABC on kids helmets and shirts. (A=Aimee, B=Billy, C=Caleb)
As hard as it is the only way to survive is to focus on the positive. DOn't be afraid to talk about memories. My friend from high school was engaged to another friend. We talked about her often. She existed and we acknowldged her life. The same for the 16 yr old that was killed a few years later. He was the boyfriend of my best friends sister. We sometimes still talk about him some 20 years later.
Life has to go on. Sometimes it is easier then other other times, but you just have to keep running your race until it is your turn to stop.

 

[ADAMS4]

Hello. One of my best friends just lost her 4 year old daughter last Monday. She battled Leukemia for 27 months. It was just so incredibly sad to see a small child in the coffin. My kids took the news very hard. I have known teens that passed, but never such a small child.

 

[Handbag Lady]

I know of one that has changed my life.

In Junior High, one of my friends was hit by a drunk driver. He didn't die, of course, but had multiple surgeries and lived in and out of the hospital for two years and then he died.

To this day, I get teased because I don't drink and drive. Yeah, I drink (I love wine and am learning about it) but even with one drop, I refuse to get behind the wheel. I can't imagine doing THAT to anyone.

Young lives lost too soon, it is sad to think of him and how much of his life he had left. He would have been 40 this year, just like the rest of us. We all get the same amount of time, a lifetime. What you do with yours is important, no matter how small you think what you do every day impacts others.

 

[MELSMICE]

Yes, I've known young children that have passed away. My cousin drowned in the creek behind her home while sledding. She was 10 years old.

Friends of my sister lost their 4 year old DD in a tragic car accident. The mom was driving. She ran a stop sign that was blocked by an overgrown bush. They were broadsided by a Mack truck. Her youngest was unhurt, the middle child was killed and her oldest had a severe head injury.

One of my dance students passed away a little over 2 years ago from leukemia. She was only 7 when diagnosed & passed away when she was 9.

All very sad. It makes you hug your children just a little bit tighter when you see them.

 

[MidgeD79]

I have had 6 kids and buried 3 of them. Rebekah died in 1986 (4th child) at 14 hours old. She had been diagnosed at 23 weeks gestation having spina bifida, diagphragmatic hernia, and only a small portion of brain stem. She was born full-term weighing 6.5 hours. After life-support was pulled she lived 10 minutes in my arms. Michael died in 2003 at the age of 18 years. He was born with spina bifida and had 53 surgeries. He was at home and waited until the early morning hours when I told him he made it and everything would be ok. I went to sleep and he died. Jessica died in 2006 at the age of 26 from a brain aneurysm. She lived for 2 days and underwent successful surgery, but never woke up. She died 10 minutes after life-support was pulled with my arms around her. She had an almost 3 year-old son(he turned 3-3 days after she died)and 10 year-old daughter. They were separated one week later. I have the son and the paternal grandmother has the daughter. I have tried for 2 years to get them together and have been unsuccessful. I do have generous visiting rights and she lives about 15 miles away. Humans would go insane if the intense grief after the death of a child did not fade. Even your own imagination cannot compare to the reality. My faith means everything. I'm "Standing on the Promises of God"!!!

 

[GEM]

A friend of mine from college lost his almost two year old very suddenly and expectedly in September. They put him to bed one night, kissed him goodnight....and he never woke up. It seems that he got sick in the night, vomited, and choked to death. It's the saddest thing I've known. He would have been two years old this week.

My friend writes a blog about how they are dealing....very, very sad...but also sort of uplifting, in a way. I'm not a religious person at all, but I do find their faith inspirational.

http://claytonguiltner.wordpress.com/

 

[Shmily1]

My brother, that I had partially raised, was killed on his way to school while crossing a railroad crossing that had no crossing arms or lights, when he was 17. He never saw the train due to the sun coming up over the trees and lived 54 minutes after being hit. I went to his graduation later that school term and they had an empty chair for him and the principal came to give my parents his diploma. My mom never got over it. I was pregnant with DD17 at the time and she looks and acts like him and her middle name is what he had wanted to name his little girl when he had one one day.

 

[Pomlover2586]

Wow.......thank you all so much for sharing. I know I can't describe it well but somehow knowing others have experienced the loss of a young one helps ease the pain of losing these guys. God Bless you all for sharing

 

[Master Mason]

I have known many people that have passed away as kids. My brother's best friend flipped his motercycle onto his head, my cousin was killed in a car crash, another cousin lost a baby to crib death. Girl hung herself in the bathroom at the local middle school. Another drowned in the toilet, another was in a bunkbed and fell out, he ended up hung on the bed sheets, girl in my HS suffered a fatal heart attack at 17 etc.... Death sucks, but it really sucks when it a young person.

 

[monkey68]

A friend of mine was killed when I was 15 (about 8 years ago). Her, her little sister, and mom were waiting for a bus when a drunk driver jumped the curb and hit the bench they were sitting on. My friend was killed instantly, her 10 year old sister died a day later in the ICU, the mom was in a coma for a while, woke up, but has no memory of anything from before the accident. She doesn't even know she had daughters, which might actually be better.

 

[juligrl]

A 5 year old girl in our neighborhood passed away earlier this year after a battle with DiPG (a rare form of brain cancer). To say her cancer and death touched a lot would be...an understatement.

One of my good friends from high school died at college. She was 18 and in her freshman year at school. Completely unexpected death from an undetected heart condition. It was 11 years ago last week she passed. That was a tough one - she touched so many lives.

 

[ScrapperBelle]

Our oldest DS was killed in a car accident last December. He was 18. Actually he was my stepson, but DH and I had custody of him for the last few years, so he was very much like my son.

We recently passed the 1 yr. mark and it has been a difficult, stressful year. I try to remember the good times and not think about the actual wreck and the horrible days immediately after it.

I think overall we've dealt with it pretty well, but we've all had our "moments".
One key has been allowing ourselves to feel what we feel at the time and not feel guilty about it. I had someone tell me that I couldn't be mad at God. I'm not mad at God and I haven't questioned "why?" because I know I'll never receive an answer...at least not in this life. But I have had my times when I was mad about it. I think we're all entitled to that and I think surely God understands. That's been my way of coping...just allowing myself to feel whatever I want to and not feeling guilty about it. A couple of times I have had to pull over because a song made me cry. We live in a small community and no one would think I was crazy or anything...but I wouldn't care if they did.

Grief is a very personal thing and we all go through it differently. I think most people's problems come from trying to do what they think others expect of them.

It's just been a lot of little steps for us. Simple things like mac n cheese become a big deal. I avoided making this for a while because it was one of his favorites...but I knew that I had to get through that, so one day I made it and I cried the whole time...but it was some of the best I've ever made...and we all really enjoyed it. We all got to laughing and talking about how he could eat a whole pan by himself. Little things like that...just one step at a time.

 

[pls5286]

Oct 31, 2001, my best friend lost her 15 month old son. Conner was kicked in the chest by a horse. His dad had to perform CPR on him, but he never came back.

I was a paramedic for 10 years and all too often, I saw young lives cut too short for various reasons...car wrecks being one of them. Kids always affect you. I had a call one night and I actually called home and made my mom go check on my son, it affected me that bad.

 

[Shmily1]

Our oldest DS was killed in a car accident last December. He was 18. Actually he was my stepson, but DH and I had custody of him for the last few years, so he was very much like my son.

We recently passed the 1 yr. mark and it has been a difficult, stressful year. I try to remember the good times and not think about the actual wreck and the horrible days immediately after it.

I think overall we've dealt with it pretty well, but we've all had our "moments".
One key has been allowing ourselves to feel what we feel at the time and not feel guilty about it. I had someone tell me that I couldn't be mad at God. I'm not mad at God and I haven't questioned "why?" because I know I'll never receive an answer...at least not in this life. But I have had my times when I was mad about it. I think we're all entitled to that and I think surely God understands. That's been my way of coping...just allowing myself to feel whatever I want to and not feeling guilty about it. A couple of times I have had to pull over because a song made me cry. We live in a small community and no one would think I was crazy or anything...but I wouldn't care if they did.

Grief is a very personal thing and we all go through it differently. I think most people's problems come from trying to do what they think others expect of them.

It's just been a lot of little steps for us. Simple things like mac n cheese become a big deal. I avoided making this for a while because it was one of his favorites...but I knew that I had to get through that, so one day I made it and I cried the whole time...but it was some of the best I've ever made...and we all really enjoyed it. We all got to laughing and talking about how he could eat a whole pan by himself. Little things like that...just one step at a time.

I know exactly what you mean. We were talking the other day and I was telling a story of when DB was young and wanted to put up a buggy and DM started driving out of the parking lot without him and I told her she may want to stop and wait for him. We were all laughing really hard and then I started crying. He's been gone for 18 years and the thought of missing him still hurts my feelings when I think of the good he could have done. It gets better, but it never goes away.