I appreciate it.
The shock has worn off now, but I don’t think the reality of it has fully sunk in yet. I’m on the other side of the country, so I guess i still feels sort of distant and not entirely real.
The nearest situation I can think of to what you are going through in my life was coming back from the summer holidays at college and finding out that a young lady I had known since I was twelve had suddenly died of Menengitus.
She too was a radiant human being with so much potential. She worked particularly hard on one subject which I had just waltzed through without revising, much to her annoyance. I was looking forward to seeing her return for the new year in a new set of courses. And she just wasn’t there anymore. The funeral had happened while we were away. Representatives of the college had gone to it. It just felt intensely strange and difficult to process. I had already experienced the passing of my elderly great grandparents at this point but this was someone my age (17 at that time so thirty years ago). I’ve experienced too many long goodbyes since. Mortality sucks. You have my sympathy.