Too Young to Die

We shouldn’t be going to friend’s funerals.
Because our friends shouldn’t be dying. They shouldn’t be sick. They shouldn’t have accidents. We’re too young to be widows and widowers.


My husband had a friend from high school die this last week. Her name is Jennifer.
I had only met her a couple of times when Ian and I were engaged in Provo.
She was studying language pathology, and writing a book with her professor?
I am not exactly sure, but she was really bright and very driven.  
I had a little premonition that she wished she could have dated Ian.
They were super good friends from high school. and she was a really great person and dating is hard.
Plus, I could have been imagining it. Probably was.


Anyway, she found her heart's home a few years later and promptly had five children.
Five brown haired beautiful children, who she took hiking and corralled into church and told
them shhhhh while she gave them cheerios.


Then, she got brain cancer.  
I can’t understand it. Why some people live long lives. Why do some leave so soon?
You should see the impact this beautiful woman had on people.
She loved to sing and made music part of her life. I don’t think she ever lost touch with a friend.
Her high school choir and orchestra friends sang together for her funeral. Ian couldn’t get there.
We hadn’t set aside life funds or vacation days for funerals.
Because friends shouldn’t be dying.
We’re too young.
We have homes to purchase and foreclose on. Retirement is years away. There is still time for
mistakes.We could still be having babies, making life, not saying goodbye to it. We have careers and friends an children-young, young children who are relying on us for every meal,
every lunchbox, every stuffy nose. We have parent-teacher conferences to go to, and laundry to fold. We have friends to laugh with. We still have so many songs to sing.


We shouldn’t be singing them at funerals of high school friends.
With their babies sitting on pews, too young to understand or remember.

I'm too young to think, "I wish I knew her better." Because there should be a million tomorrows.

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