I've been blessed to be very inexperienced with funerals. Two grandparents, an aunt, and a high school classmate. With my grandparents, we knew it was coming an

I've been blessed to be very inexperienced with funerals. Two grandparents, an aunt, and a high school classmate. With my grandparents, we knew it was coming and had lots of chances to visit in the preceding year. Granted you always wish you'd done so more, but those ones are relatively easy to handle and feel like family reunions mostly. My aunt, who committed suicide around age 50, was much harder, despite her having dealt with mental illness all her life such that it wasn't out of nowhere. My grandfather, who outlived her by three years, was devastated (his wife, my grandmother, not being around as she'd passed away 45 years earlier). When my friend died, I saw his parents quite a few times in the following year. Every single one of those times weighed heavier on my mind than any of those three funerals, despite those having been for family members who I knew quite well. When comparing these early life tragedies to older people passing, the only similarity is death.