Loss in Life

I am sad tonight.  I have had a fantastic weekend hanging out with friends and enjoying life, but this afternoon I got home from work to discover through an old friend on Facebook that someone I know of was killed last night in a car crash.  This person went to the same high school as me, grew up in the same community as me, probably has some mutual friends with me, and, according to my father, even has some of the same distant relatives as me.  Although I cannot say I have ever spoken to this person, or been properly introduced to this person.... The knowledge that he is gone from this earth forever and has left behind maybe a girlfriend, his parents, his older sister, and many other relatives and important people makes my heart ache. 

I have never lost a close family member.  I have only had to deal with death through losing a very dear friend.  That was devastating enough for me.  I cannot fathom losing an immediate family member.  The pain, the loss, the sadness,...... my brain cannot comprehend this.  I know I will be faced with this one day, but in the meantime I pray that by the time I have to, I am a much stronger person. 

On November 24 it will be two years since I lost my dear friend.  She was three years older than me and we met because my ex husband and her husband worked together.  From the very first times we hung out together I knew she was a very honest and sweet person and we just clicked.  She was born with Cystic Fibrosis and almost all her life had dealt with the medical shortcomings of dealing with this disease.  She would have good days and bad days, but overall she had learned to live with it very well.  I got pregnant the summer of 2007 and she got pregnant in August 2007.  We had our babies 6 weeks apart.  This was pretty cool and a lot of fun.  We became even closer through our shared experience.  Her pregnancy did not go as well as mine and she had her little boy about 4 weeks early because of her condition.  As best as I remember, pretty much immediately after having her baby the end of April she got sick and all summer long, no matter what the doctors did, she couldn't get well again.  She wasn't able to be the kind of mother she had always dreamed of being and had to have almost constant help with the baby because she was so sick.  By November she had been hospitalized numerous times but her body was giving up.  The night her husband checked her into the hospital for the last time her pulse/oxygen level was so low the doctors were surprised that she was still conscious when the got there.  They immediately hooked her up to a ventilator and her heart stopped beating 5 days later.  Her baby was exactly 6 months old when she died. 

This is the most tragic death experience I have had in my lifetime.  I know that it pales in comparison to the average person's experiences, but it is still pain.  It is still loss.

My prayers and thoughts go out to the family that I know of in this time of great sadness.  I wish there were more I could to do to ease the pain I know they must be feelings right now.

Not my most favorite picture of my big, pregnant belly..... but one of my most treasured because the girl in the background is her.  This is the only picture I personally have of her.