The Grief of Dying Young
Life seems very different right now … at least from my perspective. It’s unimaginably harder than what I once fathomed when I was a child but far easier at times when I haven’t had to think about how to actually live it. There are so many lessons, so many twists and turns, so many frustrations, so many obligations, and so many heartaches. Yet, it’s the life that I can’t imagine not living even when depression paints a different view causing me to reconsider it.
During times of reflection, I have taken note of the amount of loss that so many people have incurred and endured within their family units. Times of brokenness which cannot be filled with even the sincerest words of condolences because the loss is so unimaginable. As of late, death has taken many families I know by tumultuous whirlwinds of pain. Life can come with it’s surprises, but no greater surprise to me is when life is taken away.
Death comes to us all, and the saddest part is how it comes to the youth. Of course, age doesn’t matter when it comes to death, but it still so very unsettling when young life ends. Dying young happens, but just because it happens doesn’t mean that anyone is ready for it … especially when it isn’t expected … especially when that young person is here today but gone the very next day because of violence.
Reflections
I had a job working with youth. So I have seen more than what I consider to be my fair share of youth dying so young. The ones I knew died too young to even know what life had to offer them outside of what they were already experiencing about life before they encountered their deaths. It’s tragic and sad, and I grieve for their families as much as I grieved for them.
In the past weeks, I have been met with more stories of death regarding youth I have known and worked with, and I am saddened that death met them in such young and vulnerable states. By the voices these youth gave via their own social media accounts, these youth were living out their best lives and enjoying themselves when their lives were tragically cut short. I cannot even begin to imagine the despair and anguish of their parents. These parents must now trail the rest of their lives without their children.
It bothers me how some people devalue the lives of others. It angers me that some people have such evil within the depths of their hearts for others. Sometimes people don’t even think. They don’t consider how their actions will affect so many others around them based on what they do to just one person. It saddens me that this type of hatred continues to exist and take out one life right after another.
I don’t know what else I can say. I’m at a loss. There is so much grief when anyone dies … especially when it’s the death of the young.
My Voice Unchained 