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Funerals are for old people.  Grandparents, long lost great uncles or aunts, old family friends of your parents or grandparents that left legacies and families and memories to be celebrated.  You should be able to look around at a funeral home and smile at a memory, laugh at a heart warming story and see the life that person lived in the faces of their friends and family.  After leaving a funeral, you should be able to walk away and say "I sure will miss him but look at his life.  He had a great one."  You should be warmed by the memories you shared and feel comfort that your lost one lived life to the fullest and was happy when they left.

Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of attending a few of such funerals.  Though heart-breakingly sad, I was amazed by what these men had left behind in their friends and their families.  I was saddened that their lives had come to an end but I felt restored that they had made memories, built families and their lives would live on in their friends and families.

In the very recent past, I have unfortunately had to attend funerals for people that were far too young to die.  People that were MY age.  People that had only begun their lives.  I saw a friend that I had known since grade school leave behind 2 small boys.  I watched a family mourn the loss of my ex boyfriend from high school who had so much more to do with his life.  Recently, a friend lost his nephew who was only 30.  I felt these terrible tragedies deeply and I mourned for them all.

But none of that prepared me for this.  Sunday my whole world was rocked when I learned that another old friend, I have known her for as long as I can remember, had lost her 9 month old baby girl.  I was reduced to tears just by checking my Facebook.  I had never met the baby and to be perfectly honest, haven't actually spoken to my friend in years.  However, we have been Facebook friends for several years and I always enjoyed reading her posts.  We have vastly different political and religious views but we were able to connect over being single moms, her constant challenges of herself "just to see if she could do it," healthy eating and our general positive attitudes.  At least, she greatly touched me and always made me smile with her positivism and general quirkiness.  I hope I was able to make her smile sometimes as well.  I actually feel closer to her now than when we actual every day friends.

She has had a very difficult past few years including a divorce and all the heartbreak that goes along with it and most recently health issues.  But this is beyond all comprehension.  She loved her daughters with all she had in her and anyone who knows her (in real life or virtually) can see that.  To have a baby taken away from you, before she had even begun to live, is unfathomable to me.  I can't even find the words to say and even if I could, they wouldn't be able to make a dent in the pain that I am sure she feels.

I am shocked at how hard I have taken the news.  Again, I never met the baby girl.  But I loved seeing her beautiful smile in Facebook pictures.  I loved the posts about her "firsts" and how much her big sister loved her.  I loved seeing the posts of a frantic mother than was stretched too thin but would never give up and was showing her daughters how to be a strong, independent, positive woman.  I know that any reappearance of those happy posts will be a long time coming, but I hope she will be able to find her voice again.  I don't think Mindy realized how many people she affected on a daily basis, but I can tell from her Facebook wall now, I was not the only one who smiled at her commentary on life.

People say "Everything happens for a reason."  Being a non religious person, I have always felt that is a cop out.  My belief is that people say that to make themselves feel better about their situation.  But I can honestly say, for the first time in my life, I hope with all that is within me that it is, in fact, true.  I cannot begin to imagine what the reason would be for a 9 month old to leave her mother and her sister, and how a mother can possibly continue to live in this world without her baby, but I pray that there is a reason and that Mindy can somehow overcome this terrible tragedy and give Alli a legacy, even though she was far too young to create her own.