The loss of a 13-year-old girl

Yesterday, I found a friend of mine, who I work with in the suicide world, had a heart attack on Friday. This rocked my reality. Although his daughters are about my age, sometimes we think people will live forever. And it's a reality check for him and his family as well. A short time later in the morning, I found out that the daughter of one of Denise's childhood friends (they go back to elementary school) had died of a brain tumor yesterday morning. She was 13. It was through facebook that we had connected because I had posted some photos of Denise and her Brownie troop and some birthday parties and Jen saw them and friended me. She worked tirelessly to help her daughter since her diagnosis last fall. I haven't been able to stop thinking about their road and reading the blog entries of the journey of Brianna and her family. Jen wrote how Brianna told her she didn't want to die. While it's a different kind of death than suicide, it's still a loss and the one of a young person always is painful. I know the grief journey they are on and I hope they continue to feel Brianna's presence in their lives because she is now with them, although in a different sense, and guiding them as they move forward without her physical presence.