It is very sad to know of a person who dies. It is even harder if that person is still young and has a lot of potential.  Be it as it may, we cannot deny the fact that all living things must die eventually. We cannot defy death and the when death is coming, there is nothing we can do but to accept it. 

It is sad to hear of a younger person who dies before everyone else for the following reasons:

1.    Lost Potential. If the young person is an intelligent and good person, people will feel sorry for the loss because of the loss potential. “This young person might have been an important somebody someday.” will probably be mentioned a lot at the funeral. 

My best friend in college was studying to become a doctor. He is on full-scholarship and because of his academic performance; is among the top of his class. But because of a terrible car accident, he died along with two more of my friends. During his wake, most of the people who spoke at the eulogy mentioned all his accomplishments and how his potentials were lost. 

2.    Parents’ Grief. It is sad to attend a funeral where the parents are the ones who are burying their child. One goal of parents is to see to it that their child will get the best education that they could possible afford and to see to it that this child of theirs will be well off in life before they die. However, when a child dies before his/her parents, the parents are deprived of the opportunity to see the end of their emotional investments. The parents will no longer be able to see to it that their child will have a bright future and therefore, these parents will feel more grief and may get depressed for a long time. 

The mother of my departed best friend kept asking me during the funeral why her son died. Since I was still young that time, I did not know what to answer her and instead just listened to her grieve. She got depressed for a long time and would still remember his son whenever she will see me. 

3.    Friends’ Grief. When a person at your age group dies, you and your friends will get together during the visitation and the wake to share memories about the friend who died. Different people are affected by grief in different ways, just the same with funeral arrangements Guatemala and the same will go among friends. 

During my friend’s wake, I could see that there are a lot of ways that my friends are coping with grief. There are those who are talkative and try to make everybody cheerful. There are those who silently mourn for their departed friend. 

4.    Perception about Death. When a younger person dies, friends of that person will be faced with the harsh reality about death. Especially if the person is still in his/her teens; the surviving friends will immediately be faced with the reality that even if they are young, death can come for them at anytime. 

My best friend died while we were still in our late teens. During that time, we felt that we were supermen, drinking too much, partying too much without any concern for the consequences that too much partying and too much drinking will bring to our bodies. When he died because of a car accident (the driver was inebriated); I immediately had the realization about my own mortality and realized that I could have been with them in that accident. My friends also questioned their own mortality and became more cautious about their driving and partying. 

When a younger person dies before everyone else, family and friends will feel a lot of mixed emotions. Parents will get traumatized by the fact that they are burying their child and that this is not a common event and is in reverse of the natural way of the child outliving his/her parents. Friends who have a friend who died may have their young minds traumatized with dealing with the reality of death. 

Article by Dunbar Winston of FuneralesReforma, who is a specialist in hispanic estate planning. For more information on cremacion Guatemala and manejo de duelo Guatemala, visit his site today.