My pops died about a decade ago from old age. It wasn’t a surprise, and we’d generally had a reasonable amount of time to grieve so it wasn’t hitting us all at once.

The funeral home that handled his funeral, at the same time they were also handling the funeral of a local high school girl who’d been killed in a car wreck. I never saw any of the next of kin, because I guess they normally only schedule one wake at a time.

I really felt (and still feel) for her and her family. Dad got to live a long life, have a career, have a family, and die in his sleep in his 70s. She, on the other hand died before she got to get out on her own and live a life, and it would’ve been devastating to her family to have her ripped away like that. Not to mention the strong chance that she was conscious and suffering as she died.

She’d only be 26 or 27 today, if she’d survived the wreck and the recovery.

Even with long term grief counseling I don’t know how you’d ever get over that, burying your child.