When people die young

[JoonT]

Today it is 30 years since my cousin died. He was only nine and drowned while on holiday. We weren't close (I barely knew him), but I often think about him. The parents live in Australia, and have put some photos I've never seen on social media, which is why I can't get it out of my head. Psychologically, it's something I just can't compute. I have no religious faith, so I don't know why I should be surprised. Life is just random stuff happening – unpredictable and meaningless. Has anyone else out there had this experience? I mean, of knowing someone young who died in a silly, random way? Stupid, random things like drowning, or falling off a cliff, makes life seem so ridiculous and absurd.

I remember this. I walked through the underpass just where the car came off the road just today. Every time I do I think of them. Hard to believe it was 1992.
Another girl died on the same stretch of road just after Princess Diana died. Only 19.Driving home from work and in a crash with a speeding driver. She had been discussing what she wanted at her funeral on the day of Diana's.

My 26 year old nephew died last year after a charity boxing match-ultra white collar boxing. He collapsed at the end and never came round. We still don’t know the cause of his death. It has affected my family in a way I can’t describe. Devastated doesn’t begin to cover it. He was a fit young man with no health issues and was doing it for charity. There is an inquest in May (6-8 days) which will hopefully give us some answers but my family will never be the same. It has destroyed us. We live on and try to be happy but there is a sadness that will never go away. Thinking of all of you who have suffered a sudden and premature loss like this.

So very sorry for people’s losses.

In my case I didn’t know the children well but it was the effect their deaths had on our school. In a 12 month period when I was in 4-5th year seniors, one child died in a gas explosion in their house, one was swept into the sea from the promenade and one was murdered. All so tragic and senseless.

One of my school mates got pulled under a speed train when he was 17. He was kinda small and lanky, He was such a nice lad, we used to have a laugh. I often think about him when I pass the station it happened at.

My Son died. He was 5 days old. It’s coming up to his second birthday in March. Life is so very Cruel. It’s so difficult to comprehend why such pure souls are taken. 😢

One of the guys I used to know when I was a teen, he was about 30ish, lovely guy was a local in the pub my family worked at. He got knocked over by his own friend who then did a hit and run. It was awful, especially as we knew his girlfriend very well. She was absolutely heart broken.

Im sorry for your loss. Its so shit.

I've come to the conclusion that no matter how close we are to people that share the same grief its still something we travel though alone. Its so cruel.

I can relate to your forum name no matter what anyone else says or how much I try to believe them.

I am in awe of my ex, she is so powerful in her grief and in her life.
Our daughter, I don't really know, she won't let anyone close enough.
I feel like a fraud, an empty shell without purpose but fuck it, I've made promises to those I love and I'm a stubborn sod so on I go.

Someone I went to sixth form with died scuba diving in Australia a year after we left.

I wasn't particularly close to her but she was in one of my classes - I read about the death in the papers as it was so unusual. Just seemed so random - so many people I know have gone scuba diving on holiday and no one's died.

Apparently she didn't even disobey the rules, wander from the group or dive deep, she just passed out randomly in shallow water and drowned before the instructor found her

Someone I used to live with at university died in his sleep due to a heart attack at 21, he'd just graduated Uni. Just very unlucky, his arteries had narrowed by about 50%. I wasn't living there, this was years later. Someone I went to school with committed suicide at 24. Another girl in my year died of leukaemia and a rare liver condition at 22. I understand why people are saying younger deaths are tragic and unnatural but you must understand someone would still grieve a parent or loved one no matter how long they lived?

A friend in his teens, was a keen cyclist and was hit by a car. The guy driving didn’t see him because the sun was in his eyes . I’m always quite nervous of low sun in the sky during winter and my husband always tells me I drive very close to the middle of the road, I’ve never realised that until recently

also my cousin was leaning out a window having a smoke after a night out and he fell out the window.

Someone I knew from secondary school died aged 32 of breast cancer and left behind two little children. Someone I knew from college died aged 29 of bowel cancer. Someone from my street growing up died age 27 of blood cancer. A friend died age 22 in a car crash. A friend's son died of a brain injury at 13. All horrific. But the one who died of breast cancer- that set off a year of sheer health anxiety in me. I have struggled with it before but it was deep and enduring that year. Probably because I have children the same age as hers and i couldn't get my head round how she was simply dealt a terrible hand. How easy it was to be living in the chaotic and joyful years of young children, getting a lump checked out, thinking it was due to breastfeeding and then being told it was a cancer that had already spread to your spine and would take you within the year. It terrifies me now to even write it.

One thing that breaks my heart is seeing a hearse with a little coffin in. Or a little child's grave in a cemetery. I saw one for a 6 year old boy who died in the early 90s in December and it had a little Christmas tree with lights on. It touched my heart to think of his family missing him deeply 30 years on and not wanting him to go without Christmas. Forever 6 to them. I have children and I don't know how I would ever be able to feel a beat of my heart that didn't hurt ever again.

My best friend died at 19 from an epileptic fit. For years I blamed myself as I thought why her and not me. I was in a tough place and she had the perfect life. Still think about her nearly 15 years on. It was my first glimpse of death and how easily people can lose their life.

My friend was murdered aged 16, stabbed when out shopping with friends by a random man who heard voices in his head telling him to kill someone... it definitely shaped my whole attitude in life & very much live life with the philosophy that life is far too short and precious so to be kind & not dwell on things you can not change

How awful for you, I'm so sorry.

Lots of young deaths along the way. One memorable one was my friend who was stabbed to death when she was 16 by her girlfriend. I’m late 30s now and that still doesn’t feel real.

The other one was a young boy in my daughters class a couple of years ago who over one weekend died very suddenly of a brain aneurysm. That was very, very sad.

A boy in my year always wanted to join the Army.
Left school and went into training.
His first post was to Northern Ireland.
He never arrived.
The vehicle he was being transported in was
blown up. Only 2 survived.

I am 29 and have recently lost my Dad at 61, (which I felt was young) but reading these posts are heartbreaking and my love goes out to everyone. I have too known someone who was only 32, and simply didn't wake up one morning which is terrifying.

Ill chuck my two pennies in and say regarding losing elderly parents as middle age adults I think in comparison to losing a baby, child, teenager or young adult or a young adult with children is worse xx

There was a clip on the news the other day about a guy who was out for a night with friends, got into a stupid scuffle, was sucker punched and died instantly. The video has been shared online because the (very noble and brave) mother wants it to serve as a warning. Her son was 19, I believe. You see him push another boy away from his friend, then a third boy comes round the side and hits him in the face. The coroner stated that he was dead before he hit the ground, because his neck broke. You actually see his neck kind of twist and then he goes rigid and falls flat on his back. It’s so horrific. He’s standing outside a typical British pub, in a typical British high street, and then bang, total extinction and nothingness forever. It’s just impossible to comprehend.

I have the letters my great grandfather (a British Tommy) wrote home from the First World War. In one of them, he’s been wounded, and he writes “I suppose that by now most of my poor old mates are dead, as we were about to go over the top when I was hit”. I often think of that line - how those young men jumped out of the ditches they were sheltering in and bang, gone forever.

I know of a few people in their 30s who have died of cancer, leaving young children behind. That’s always so sad.

But the weirdest death I’ll always remember is the teenage daughter of someone I used to work with who was putting her jeans on at the top of the stairs, tripped over and broke her neck and died. Her Mum came in from work to find her. She was about 15/16. Just awful. I can’t stand being around the top of the stairs now, and I’m always telling my dc not to run down them and be careful. Just so random and sad.

These are such sad tragic stories.

My cousin fell from a 3rd floor hotel window when he was 11. His parents were down in the bar and they thought he was asleep. It was boiling hot evening and he opened the window. It opened too quick and he fell. Nobody noticed for around 2 hours. Hotel were fined as the window shouldn't have been able to open so wide.

God, stories like that make life seem so absurd. They send a shiver up my spine, but they also, weirdly, comfort me. Why worry about anything? I have no religious faith. I’m not a firm atheist and materialist (sometimes I wish I was), but I think it’s very likely there’s nothing. And the thought that any of us, including me, could be engulfed by total, silent nothingness forever, at any second, is weirdly comforting. Ultimately, it’s all just a joke and nothing really matters - except kindness. Kindness to all things that suffer, for the brief time we’re here.

I had a friend who was murdered age 27 in a very high profile case! It still makes me feel aware of just how quickly it can all end and how unfair and cruel life can be sometimes.

It is the birthday today of a lad I was at school with who drowned age sixteen. It bit me horribly hard for many years. There was no counselling then, back in the eighties as you would get now. His parents are both now dead and his brother can't face going to his grave. I am the only person who seems to leave flowers there and my daughters have said they will continue after me. It's just so so sad that he was robbed of his future by a freak set of circumstances. Life is so cruel at times.

When I was in year 5, 4 boys from year 8 (middle school so year 5 were the youngest and year 8 the oldest), were killed in a car accident. They were being driven by one of the boys older brothers who had only past his test the week before (he survived). The accident was literally metres from the school entrance. They were buried next to each other with identical head stones. Cemetery right opposite the school. We used the cemetery as a short cut through to school so I'd see their graves every single day.

Also know of a lad (early 20s) who died at work. He was epileptic and his work refused to let him have a locker on the ground floor. He had a fit at top of stairs and fell down them and died. His workplace have only just been fined and it was a few years ago. Well known supermarket.

Not a friend but a friend of a friend came up to me in a train station asking for money for a drink. We were both 14 and I assumed she was not going to use the money for any good purpose so I said I hadn't got any money but she could have my bottle of Ribera which she took.
A week later she's jumped off a 120ft building and survived the fall dying hours later in hospital. Felt so cruel at the time.
I think of her a lot.