My nephew had a very close friend while growing up here in our hometown, who passed away suddenly. It has affected all of us, his aunts and uncles, cousins, lifelong family friends, as we always remember them together as kids, and when my nephew would come to town to visit, he always included a stop by his old friend’s house. I am so touched how all of us, most of who never even met the young man, are reaching out to his family to help during this time of loss, as we considered him one of our family, as he was an extension of our nephew. My son has friends that are like brothers to him, and it made me think of what will happen when those kids pass, some, unfortunately, too young, due to tragedy, illness, or accident, and how I will deal with this, and more importantly, help my son deal with this. A sad reality that life is too short, and we should treasure the time we not only have with our children, but with those important in their lives as well.
That is sad for your nephew. He will miss him for the rest of his life, I’m sure. I really feel for the young man’s family. The worst thing that can happen in the human experience has just happened to them. Condolences.
I am sorry for your loss. When my D’s good friend died of a brain tumor, it was very hard on me also. I remembered the girl’s big smiles at sleepovers and her exuberance. It is a very painful reminder of the bittersweetness of parts of life. It is also a sort of sad ending to the innocence of childhood and a reminder that so much of life and death is random and uncontrollable.
My niece lost her closest friend at age 19. It was a car accident so no advance warning. 18 months later and it is still raw for her. It helped her to find support at a Hospice support group. The older folks in the group supported and pushed her to not give up on living. That she needed to move forward in her life but that didn’t mean forgetting her dear friend. We all cried even though we had only met him once. Sadness for a life that ended way to soon. What
we and a lot of the younger cousins took away from this was that life can be short and not to hold onto “hurt” feelings and grudges.
So true. So sad. I add my condolences to you and your extended family and will say a prayer for the friend’s family.
Our son lost a good friend while the boys were in middle school. While we were at the service, S finally broke down and sobbed. I held him. (Tears are running down my face as I write this - it was ten years ago.) It was one of the hardest moments in his young life. I encouraged him to write his own note to the parents of this young man. He did. I also encouraged (okay, I bought the cards) him to send a card to the parents every year near his friend’s birthday. He did this through high school. When I found out S continued to do it though college and beyond, I was surprised and so pleased. I did not know this until recently when I saw the friend’s mom at another memorial service.
I have a friend who lost her child (inoperable brain tumor) when she was almost eight. I remember her often and still wear her ‘Hope’ wristband every day. The friend said she is afraid people won’t remember her daughter. What a horrible thought! I send a card each year on the child’s birthday. I will never forget.
I am thankful every day for my own children, now adults, and their good health.
My daughter lost her boyfriend/first love when she was 16. They had started off as good friends. He was such a sweetheart and it definitely broke my heart that he died and was heart wrenching to see the impact on her. We felt rea!ly he!pless. She pretty much shut us out and we did not know how to help her. She went through guilt thinking if she’d been there it wouldn’t have happened (we were on vacation when the accident happened) & nightmares - we eventually had to seek professional help. I don’t think the old bubbly her ever really came back. She is happily married to a great guy who she loves dearly. But that loss certainly had a huge impact on her.
My D lost one of her closest friends to a congenital illness just before HS started. The first day of HS, D came home sobbing. The school district had not removed her friend’s name from the roster and three separate teachers called out her name in attendance; I guess those were classes she and my D were scheduled to be in together. According to my D, the girl’s name was called out to silence until my D responded - “She died, she is dead.” I called the GC and asked them to take the child’s name off the roster. She was an only child so at least no siblings had to hear her name called.
I am thankful every day that my children, while not Ivy material, D1 athletes or Academy award winners, are healthy.
Her poor parents. As the parent of an only child, that is my ultimate nightmare. Whenever I hear of something like that happening, I hope it is not an only child.
Not a best friend, but DS lost a good friend and classmate the summer before his senior year in HS. It was horrible. The nice thing was how all of the HS classmates supported each other, as well as the family.
DS was actually OOS at a music program, and I had to call him with this news. The staff there was awesome, and excused him for 48 hours so he could come home for the memorial service.
I lost my childhood best friend senior year in high school, and my next best friend who was going to be my maid of honor a month before my wedding. There is something really significant losing childhood friends. I never got to be the person who felt invincible as a young person. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that horrible things happen to people. It took me a long long time to allow myself to get attached to people. Other stuff has come along the way my thought is never why me, but why not me.
It made my maid of honors mom so sad to see me we didn’t keep in touch, which made it super hard for me to also lose her family.
I feel for your family. This is a terrible loss and one that cannot be taken easily. Please continue to reach out to those affected as time passes; so often people are “there” for the beginning of the mourning period but leave people on their own in those later phases, when grief still wounds.
We’re WAY past this fortunately by years but it was more than tough…and every situation is different.
My D lost not one but 3 friends in HS. One was a fellow classmate, the other an acquaintance and the last was a friend. All within a few tragic months.
Here’s what I know…
Kids (and adults) can only absorb so much grief at a time.
Life experience counts. The focus needs to be on life. The emphasis should be on looking forward and remain there. At all times. Period.
It was NOT helpful that the school put so much emphasis on “grief counseling”. It created expectations as to how “you should be feeling”. There is NO WAY that you feel the same way about an acquaintance as the same as a loved one.
And there is also NO WAY how you should feel about friends in the obits at age 70 as you would at 15.
At 70, life passes.
At 15 you don’t get it–and you SHOULDN’T–life is starting for you and you KEEP MOVING.
End of the story–When my D’s good friend died in a car accident, I hid the newspaper.
But not for long of course. I couldn’t face it. We made it through. I didn’t do it as well as I should have. Just sayin.
My nephew’s best friend died the day of my nephew’s wedding. B was supposed to be best man at the wedding.
He had been in an ATV accident earlier the week on the way home from a memorial gathering for his sister, who had been killed by a drunk driver (with multiple priors) twelve days before. They made the decision to continue with the wedding (at B’s parents’ request), and they included a lovely tribute to B at the rehearsal and at the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, but gutwrenching beyond belief.
My sister and BIL were best friends with B’s family – they met through T-ball when the boys were six, the day after my sister buried her three month old son. My sister’s family and B’s family went on vacations together, coached teams, hung out on the houseboat, etc. His parents run a popular family entertainment venue and are hugely involved in youth sports in their community. The entire community was gutted.
My nephew is still grieving deeply, 2.5 years later. His son is named after B. If there is anything good to have come out of all this tragedy, it’s that people have made sure that B and his sister are remembered. There are waves of goodness and hope emanating from their lives. There’s now a stricter law in place for people with prior DUI convictions. There are scholarships and softball tournaments in their memory, and B’s parents go out to high schools and talk to the kids about making good choices. We all hug our children a bit tighter.
Both of my sisters have lost sons, too. The grief never goes away. It changes with time, but the loss marked them and their surviving siblings indelibly. Both my sisters are so appreciative when people remember a birthday or funny event.
Montegut, if your nephew feels up to it at some point, a letter to his friend’s parents telling them a story about their son or just what he meant to your nephew, would be treasured as gold. My sister who lost her 24 yo son learned so much about her son from the cards and letters she received. They were a great comfort.
CountingDown-- My heart truly goes out to you and your nephew.
But here is a sincere question for every one.
Would it be perhaps better if there was not continuous “remember” moments?
It’s hard to see a young person suffer and deal with the death of a peer, especially since often that death is their first real brush with mortality, the unpredictability and cruelty of life. That’s an awful lot for a teen to absorb and learn to cope with.
My daughter lost her long-term best friend – and the friend’s entire family – in a terrible car accident. The girls were both 19 at the time. To this day my now-27 year old daughter thinks of that tragedy as the end of her childhood. It took her a long time to be able to walk past her friend’s family home – which stood eerily empty for almost a year after the owners’ deaths – without having a haunted look on her face.
It was painful to me, too. I let my daughter mourn in her own way. Her biggest source of solace were other peers, friends the two girls had in common. But that loss will be with my daughter for ever.
When I was in my late twenties, one of my closest friends from college died from complications of injuries from an auto accident.
Nothing my parents or anyone else in my family could have said or done would have helped me deal with this. The only thing that helped even a little was getting together informally with some other college friends before and after her funeral. But even that was painful. We had enjoyed a group friendship in college and had kept up with each other’s lives since. And now there was a missing link in our chain. Nothing would ever be the same again.
My first child was born about two years later. If we had had a girl, I had planned to suggest to my husband that we give her my friend’s name as a middle name. But as it turned out, our first child was a boy, and the moment passed. Our second was a girl, but by then others had already honored my friend in this way, so I didn’t suggest it.
I’m 61 now, and this was still the most painful death I have ever lived through because she died young and so suddenly. The first time you lose a peer is something you never forget.
To this day, I can’t bear to look at the photo album from my wedding because it includes pictures of this friend. I’ve never really gotten over her death and I don’t expect that I ever will.
When I was a young Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa one night I woke to a strange sound. I went outside and the sound grew and grew…a human sound, but what was it? I followed the sound until I realized it was a tremendous keening. The whole village had assembled outside of a house as the news traveled, to wail and wail in solidarity for a woman who had just died in childbirth. It was one of the most powerful things I had ever experienced.
Afterwards, life seemed to go on as usual. Life there is hard, a day-to-day effort to squeeze sustenance from the earth. People die easily and most people lose children. I have often thought that this very intense, open, cathartic public grieving must help people cope and go on. I wonder if we could be a little less refined in our outward shows of grief …if it were OK to wail and knash our teeth and hold hands instead of being embarrassed to do so, maybe it would be easier to start living in the present again.
The reason the child who died was an only child was because of the illness; it was genetic and there was no test for it. Her parents chose not to have other children. Although I tried to keep in touch with the mom for awhile, it soon became clear that it was painful for both of us. I was a reminder of healthy and living children. I felt immense guilt that my 5 children were healthy and her only child died. My guilt wasn’t rational and I knew it but I lost touch with her and then they moved away. Occasionally, my D still visits her friend’s grave site.
My youngest had a friend who, a month before high school graduation, fell or was pushed from a balcony in a high rise apartment. When I was young a very dear friend was stabbed to death. My parents showed no emotion…not because they didn’t care, they did. A decade later my father and I attended a funeral. We passed by my friend’s
I think this depends on the person suffering the loss. We should take our cues from the parents, children, siblings, relatives, or friends of the person who died. The mother of S’s friend said it means the world to her that S remembers her son. My friend who lost her daughter says that she appreciates that I can say her name and talk about her. She tells me how much she loves to hear other people talk about her beloved daughter.