Young people dying

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Just saw where a 20 year old girl died in a car crash when she went across the median and collided with another car. She was a college student working on a degree and an accomplished dancer at one of the local dance studios. She had a life full of activities and family and friends. All gone in an instance.

Those type of things always seem to provide me prospective on my own mortality. How quickly things can be over and you never know when you step out of the door if this is it for you. It makes you feel like you want to rush out and do everything you always hoped to accomplished in short order. In a way, death seems to be one of the few ways I seem to be able to relate with other people. It also makes me realize how different my life is from the normal person. I am in my little world with my ideas and my little comfortable zone where I associate with people without ever really building relationships or at least not permanent ones.

Do you have moments where you can see yourself more clearly as it relates to rest of the world?

This is why I always drive very defensively. She was only 20 so possibly an overconfident driver too.

Yes, it is a possibility. But why does everyone have to make remarks like that about young drivers? My best friend died in his car at 16 - so close to my house I heard the impact. (I didn't know what it was until the next day.) And I really could have done without all the "crazy kid" and "must have been on drugs" and "just another stupid punk" comments. I was hurting enough without having to hear that.

When someone dies, it is a tragedy. And when they're the only fatality, there is no reason to beat them up for it. If they were at fault, they sure paid a pretty high price for it. And if they weren't, then any comments are even more inappropriate. The girl died. It is a tragedy. It makes us think about our own mortality. Why can't we leave it there?

(In my friend's case, either he fell asleep, and drove straight into the tree, or else he killed himself and aimed for it deliberately. Either alternative says little about his driving skill.)

I'm sure her family is going to see this thread.

Several years ago when I was 15, a girl my age died of Leukemia. I wasn't best friends with her, but we'd shared a cabin on a school camping trip, had been on a volleyball team together, etc. Though I hadn't hung out with her outside of school since we were much younger, her death hit me hard. Of course I though, "It could've been me," but I also felt guilty for not spending any time with her since we were in elementary school. Not to mention it was one of the first times in my life that someone I saw on a regular basis and had spoken with many times in my life died, regardless of age. It was hard to deal with at the time and even writing about it now, 4 years later, it's bringing tears to my eyes to think of her and her death.

I am easily paranoid so I'm confronted (consciously or subconsciously) with my mortality everytime I leave the front door. It's not a good way to live. I also say a prayer everytime I see or hear an ambulance rush by me - there's a chance that somewhere, someone won't sleep well tonight losing sleep over a loved one, so its the least I can do, for the victim(s) and their family(s).

Do you only leave the house to go to the market and church?

before I got my job, yes

That isn't the point. Anyone who has already lived through this will find such remarks painful. As I thought I had made clear, although I did not know this girl at all, that comment stung. It brought back memories of the ignorance, the uncaring arrogance, the casual brutality I heard after my friend died.

And, for that matter, you never know... I posted on a forum mentioning a certain victim of 9/11 (fortunately, I didn't say anything I had reason to regret) - and after a few months, one of that person's relatives responded. Actually, I've had several responses, on different sites, from relatives of 9/11 victims. In this case, the girl isn't identified very clearly - which does mean that if her family, driven by grief, were to google her name (something that is not uncommon), they won't find this thread that way - but on the other hand, any family suffering such a tragedy which matched the rather general details given here might feel it applied to their loved one.

Edited to add: Although I'm sure there are some who will disagree, I don't believe this issue is off-topic, either. One of the things repeated reminders of my own mortality has taught me is to consider how I'd wish others to handle the situation if that dead person were me. And if I were hovering around up there, watching someone who had no real knowledge of what happened to me spin off a casual accusation on the internet, I'd be pretty annoyed. One of the things that convinces me ghosts do not exist, or at least have no power to haunt anyone, is that such postings are never followed by spectral visits...

I had a very close friend from my childhood(one of very few I might add) wrap his car around a tree during a street race and when I heard the news I wasn't affected by it at all. I just said to myself "guess he shouldn't have been doing that." The only time I've really been affected, I was reading the local newspaper and I got to the obituary section. Out of habit I glanced over it and saw someone from my elementary school. She had lived a very rough life. When she was 10, a drunk driver ran her down at over 90 miles per hour. She was in and out of a coma for several months and nearly died. 8 years later she had graduated high school with honors and was given a community award for volunteering and community service. Around the same time she met a GI who was stationed at the local base(one of the largest in the time zone) and was engaged. Then she died in her sleep. What struck me as unfair was she'd spent the better part of 10 years trying to make her life better, only to die in her sleep. It still hurts to think about her more than 7 years after her death. I miss you, Rachel.

I remember envying kids with terminal illnesses as young as three.