A few days ago a neighbour’s daughter passed away. The girl was 16 years old. The big house she lived in is opposite our building, just a little to the right. If I threw a ball from my bedroom window, I could easily hit the outside walls of the house. Yet I didn’t go as I didn’t know any of the people in the household and I didn’t know the young girl.

She had some medical condition of which the details are vague but from what I know she died in the middle of the night after she had a brain aneurysm. She fell from her bed and someone found her and an ambulance was called. I heard the sounds of the ambulance sirens at night and wondered who it was that was being taken. I came to know the next day that it was this girl and that she had passed away in the early hours of the morning. She had a twin brother; from what I know of twins, he’s going to feel the loss more than anyone else in the family.

The family’s mourning was long and they had a lot of relatives & friends visiting them. See the family is a very rich one, based on the income that they get from a highly successful business and are sort of giants in their fields. Indeed they are the biggest in the state. Other than the huge house, they have a vacant lot opposite the house and an office building which has space for cultural events as well. Hence the number of visitors were huge and we had cars parked all over the area. Being christians they also had prayers going on throughout a particular day with the prayers being sung over mics that were fixed to PA systems and the whole area could hear it. Although I am saddened by the untimely death of a young person, I do hate this act of public mourning; mourn and mourn in peace but let others be.

Whenever a young person dies near me I always wonder why them and not me or you? I just can’t help but wonder as the “unjust” rule of nature of taking people at random and letting others live. Why this young woman who had clearly not yet been able to live out her dreams and do things that she would have wanted to do? Why not a hardened criminal, rapist, drug dealer, arsonist, spousal abuser, terrorist or murderer? Why this child? We will never know. It just isn’t right!