I haven’t written for a long time. I’ve been overwhelmed with all of the normal things that surround the death of a loved one, particularly when you’re responsible for figuring out accounts, calling debtors, selling a home, and managing grief all at once. But another unexpected death has caught me off guard, and got me wondering: how young is too young to die?

We say it often, commenting on how sad the loss is, perhaps because age is so typically correlated with probability of death. My grandmother was 73 when she passed away, my mom 56. I’ve known people who died in their teens, their thirties, and their nineties.

I’m inexplicably outraged sometimes when others suffer a loss like this, when another event begins to occupy the space that for me is so explicitly reserved for grieving my mom. Have you forgotten? I want to say. Because for those close to a tragedy, it remains raw and painful, seemingly forever.

I feel that I’m perceived as obsessed with the morbid. I’d rather not be, but it’s hard to escape when reality drags me back to it.