When I was at secondary school a girl in my class was involved in a motorcycle accident (she was pillion) she died instantly. I wouldn’t say I knew her all that well but for some reason it profoundly effected me. I think it was maybe because she was the first person I knew who’d died and all the emotions were new to me. Her parents were understandably devastated, she was an only child and their entire world. We had a memorial service at school and a trophy was dedicated to her memory. Our school bus used to go right past her house and every day and I used to look up at her bedroom window as we passed. For the duration of my remaining school days the teenage style curtains and stickers on the window remained. 35 years on I still regularly pass that house and even though her parents don’t live there anymore and curtains and stickers have gone, I still look every time and feel sad and wonder what she would be doing if she hadn’t died. She’d be in her late 40’s now probably would have got married and had children, even be a grandma, but because of a split second of fate she died and an entire branch of her family that would have grown and the generations that would have followed will never happen. It’s beyond reason and something that messes with you. You can’t miss what you’ve never had and it’s not logical but human nature to contemplate things that never happened.
Don't think I can agree with you on the "You can't miss what you've never had" thing BM. I think there are several things I miss but never had, one of them is not having children, through choice I must add, but bitterly regret now though.
