Only the good die young

This in fact is not a new phrase I heard, although I did not know who mentioned this. If this is a title of a song, I do not know who the singer was either.

Around 10 days ago, I was listening to Queen's 'ballad album I downloaded from the internet days before that (Yes, I am a new fan of Queen after watching Bohemian Rhapsody the movie a few months ago.) While listening, I was doing another activity. And … in the middle, I heard this phrase mentioned by Brian May, "only the good die young". This phrase really captivated my attention since that morning I just knew someone I did not know by myself -- she is a wife of one acquaintance of mine. Although I did not really know her -- just sometimes saw her picture appearing on that acquaintance's wall on facebook -- I am sure she was  still young. And since my dear Mom passed away in June 2018, I have easily got emotional whenever I hear news of someone's death, I out of the blue felt emotional too that day.

"only the good die young"

It sounds very comforting, doesn't it? But do you think it will easily comfort the feeling of the family members of the deceased?

I remember when my Dad passed away in 1989, I asked myself a complaining question, "Why my dad? Why our dad? Why not someone else's?" He was 56 years old at that time. Still quite young, people said.

When I continued my study to Master's Degree, a dear classmate lost her dad (then followed by her mom several months later). When consoling her feeling, I heard her saying, "Why my dad?" It reminded me of my own complaining question many years before. A quite typical question uttered by the family members of the deceased, do you agree? My Mom passed away in June 2018, she was about to be 74 years old, not that young, I know, but still you can guess, we, her children, still expected she could stay longer with us although of course we knew it was the best for all of us. Moreover when we saw her peaceful face at her deathbed.

I can make a conclusion that "only the good die young" is really comforting but it does not reduce the pain of losing. Many people would still expect that their loved ones would not be that good if only to die young. They absolutely will need a long time to reconcile with the fact, to comfort themselves that it is actually for their own good. Many (hidden) lessons can be learned from someone's death.

No death is too soon or too late, wise people say. Death comes on time. According to whom? Life's mystery.

LG 18Feb2019