Life is so fragile. I wonder if we all really understand this? The reason I bring it up is this: On Friday, a neighbor's 18 year old daughter was on her way home from college for her week-long spring break. Just a few short miles from home, she was involved in a very bad car accident. For some reason she swerved into the other lane (on a country road) and ran head-on into an 18 wheeler....flipping her car several times. 48 hours later.........after the doctors told the parents her head trauma was not survivable...and after receiving the word there was no brain activitiy...they took her off life support and she passed away. How does one deal with this? I've been depressed ever since it first happened on Friday....and I don't even know the family personally. One second's worth of a mistake and it can be all over. I have prayed for this girl all week-end....as the entire neighborhood, friends, and family did. But to no avail.

I just don't know how one copes with the loss of a child so young....with so much living yet to do. It just shows how fragile life is......and how we all should live each day to the fullest.

Sorry. Guess I just needed to get this off my chest. I just feel so helpless.........

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

Many of us probably don't truly understand what it's like to lose a child, as we have no children. I can only guess that it's horrible to have your child leave this life before you. An old pal of mine from another board speaks of losing his son almost 20 years ago, just as if it happened yesterday.

My condolences to your friends.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

IMO time heals it. It does take a lot of time though. In 89 my brother died from leukemia when he was 18. My parents were never exactly the same but as the years went by it was easier for them to look back at what happened and still be sad but not as inconsolable as they were back at the time it happened. One of every parents worst fears is the thought of outliving their kids especially when their kids are so young.

God bless you and your friends.

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

Thanks to both of you.

Yes, I would imagine I would be re-playing the whole thing.....playing the "what if" game. "What if" she'd be on that road at a different time......would it have happened? "What if" the 18 wheeler hadn't been coming at just that time?

What was weird is that I was coming home myself from the other direction at the same time (on the same road). A motorcycle policeman came up behind me and put his red lights on. I didn't think I'd been speeding, but thought, "Oh no, guess I was speeding." Well....he sped around me and about 4 other cars ahead of me. Unknown to me at the time.....he was going to this neighbor's wreck on up the road. I was thinking.......had she not had the wreck, she and I would have been turning into the neighborhood at the same time. Why didn't she get to come home? It's hard to figure out sometimes.....isn't it?

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

your quite right, it's amazing how many people actually die. My friend took a year out before going to university...he worked in the pathology department of the hospital. He's said it was frightning the amount of people that get killed, it's just that those killed in "everyday" occurances don't get reported in the news...because it really is 'that' often.

i would imagine one of the worst things in the world, is for a parent to outlive their child.

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.

Yes, children aren't supposed to go before their parents.

We can accept it better when it's someone old.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

i always found that interesting, i wonder if it's a sex thing. If we see someone young die it's a primative thing in our brain, sparked by our genes that feals pity for lack of fertalisation, compared to a old person who has either reproduced/past their prime.

it's interesting how the human mind works.

i think, behind what we think our simple emotions of pity etc, are deep seated primitive drives.

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.

Nah....I don't think that's it. I think it's that feeling of loss relative to "fairness." A child who loses their life at 18 has barely started living. A person who dies at 85 has lived a long life. In fact, they've outlived the normal lifespan for humans. That's why I personally think it's easier to go through the death of an elderly parent.....than the death of one's own child.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

i wouldn't discount that view. but maybe it's a case of thats the 'outer' reason we use/think of - with the primitave drives of reproduction/genes etc behind it?.........maybe thats just the biologist in me, but if you ever spend much time with biology - especailly animal behaviour - it's very, very interesting how a LOT of things come down to basic drives.

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.

My own son came home for spring break on Friday. My heart goes out to the girl's parents. Our town lost a lovely 18 year old girl last year as she was coming home for Thanksgiving. It hurt everyone, even those who didn't know her. I cry so easily when something like this happens. It hurts so much to be reminded that we too could lose a child.

Your prayers were answered, JP5. She didn't suffer. She's not a vegetable. You have to put it in your heart that she's in a beautiful place. You have to believe that God is perfect and that we do not always have to understand. There's no way for us to see it - we just have to have faith.

Me, too.

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Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. It's a dumb question... skip it.