Oh Sunny, no matter how many times it happens, death always just shocks us with it's finality doesn't it? I have found, over time, that people's voices are what I miss the most.....

Many prayers for this young man's family and friends.....

When it's due to a car accident it always strikes me as so incredibly random and senseless. Beyond sad.

I always think about the split seconds that could have made a difference. A few minutes later getting out the door, making a green light, or only if they would have gone a different route, and many other questions for which there are no answers.

Maybe that's why people say when it's your time, it's simply your time and the reason why is something we'll never know.

I am sorry to hear of this tragedy, sunnycottage.

I don't know the answers to why good, productive people are taken prematurely and others live so long.

I don't know why your friend is taken and Charles Manson is alive.

I've been pondering those questions for several years now.

My prayers are with the family of this young man.

My prayers are with this family.

Just this past summer, after settling my 3 kids at the beach with my sister and her 2 young children, my cell phone rang. It was my Aunt hysterically crying, telling me my father had died suddenly of a heart attack. I can't even begin to explain how numb I was at that very moment and the days thereafter.
Just 2 1/2 months later my phone rang yet again. It was a stranger on the other line asking... is this "Polly?" Hesitantly I said yes. This was the aunt of my childhood best friend, she proceeded to tell me that the brother of my childhood best friend had died suddenly of a heart attack, at age 42, leaving behind 4 young children.

How could this happen? Here one minute, gone the next. I have been pondering that very question so much lately.

What I keep going back to is something the priest said at my fathers funeral. He said Death is a mystery. A great mystery that we will only learn the answer when it is our time. Until then, it is worth our while to live, and really live, enjoy each moment, waste no time and live like every day could be your last. It is a mystery when that day will come, and a mystery what lies thereafter.

I think about those words every day.

Sunny - my thoughts are with your family and the young mans family - particularly his young daughter. How absolutely devastating for her to be a part of this accident.

Such a tragedy.My thoughts and prayers are with you, his family and friends.

So sorry to hear of this tragedy. There are of course no answers to why. I just try to live one day at a time and be grateful for the time I have here. Praying for the family and all affected by this loss.

Jana

Oh so very sad. Thank heavens the child survived. Thirty five is so young, too young to be gone.

I'm afraid that most of us who have lived any length of time have received such shocking news. Just a little over two months ago, my son's girlfriend died under tragic circumstances. I still can't get my head around it. She was 36 and more full of life than anyone I know. My heart just aches for her family.

I will certainly keep you and your family in my thoughts. It certainly reminds you to hold your loved ones close.

Thank you all so very much. It touches my heart that you have offered up prayers and thoughts as we struggle with coming to terms with this news. My younger sibling is having an especially difficult time, as he was very close to this young man. It hurts to see him grieving so. And of course, there's nothing anyone can say to truly make it "ok", so we just extend our arms in a hug and hope that as we envelop each other in love, comfort will somehow be found.

I looked at this young man's photos on Facebook last night. He seemed to always be smiling, and always on the verge of making a witty comment and laughing. It's unfathomable to think that that's now gone. Although I keep trying to remind myself that if we carry them with us in your hearts, then those we have lost are never really gone.

As I've surely made clear in other threads, death and the afterlife have been on my mind a great deal over the past year or so. I like what Polly said above about it all being a great mystery, that we will only unlock when it's our time. I so agree with that. I'm really coming to embrace the idea that our earthly lives are but a mere blip on the radar of our existence, and believing more and more that we do indeed go on from here. I have struggled to believe that in the past, but it seems that lately it makes more sense to me. Or maybe it's just that I want so desperately for it to be, so I'm able to believe. I don't know.

I'm so sorry for the losses that have been expressed here. It hurts so terribly and so deeply, I know. But I wonder in hope if someday, when we do come to know what it's all about, if all of the sorrow and pain will be erased, and we'll understand that we really had no reason to mourn or to fear. God, I hope that's how it works.

Sunny, I know, so weird that a person can just be "gone". It is hard to wrap your head around, I know.

Sending love to your sibling and everyone touched by this tragedy.

My DH is having more than his share of deaths lately-some unexpected and some just rotten...lost his best friend to suicide recently, and another friend to cancer last week. Death is just sooo hard on the living, but unexpected, seemingly senseless death is especially difficult.

Hugs to you.