A life lost way too soon

A couple of days ago I attended the wake of a young woman my daughter was friends with in middle school. I knew her too, from driving her to and from school, mostly when the weather was bad. Since they ended up going to different high schools, I know they had rarely seen each other since, but kept in touch through Facebook and her older brother, who did go to the same high school as my daughter. Despite the lack of contact over the years, it didn't diminish the despair we felt when she went missing or the shock we felt when they found her dead.

Supposedly the police have ruled out homicide, but I have little faith in their abilities since it took them more than a week to find her body in the same park she was last seen in. The park they searched not only using dogs, but also a helicopter....and it's not that big of a park!!

There are rumors that it was drugs and I have learned that she did have a substance abuse problem in high school, for which she had received treatment, so that could be a possibility. An accidental overdose or something. Toxicology reports take weeks though, so nothing is confirmed.

Anyway, the parents decided to have an open casket and it was shocking. Unlike every other wake/funeral I've been to before where the person just looks like they're in a deep sleep, you could see how much her body had decomposed. It was very obvious that she had died the night she went missing or sometime the next day. 

Seeing that, I couldn't help but wonder why her parents wanted the casket left open. Was it meant to induce guilt so that someone steps forward and tells the police what really happened the night she went missing? Tell them who was there, were drugs involved, etc. She wasn't drunk or anything when she left the house and she told her parents she would only be gone a little while. If drugs were involved, was the open casket meant as a warning to her friends that this is what could happen to you if you do drugs?

I can't even begin to imagine the roller coaster of emotions her parents have been riding these past two weeks, and their sons as well. The utter heartache of losing their only daughter at such a young age. I may have seen them before at school functions and not realized it, but never really met them until the wake. I don't often hug people I don't know, but in that moment, we were bonded as two mothers of daughters the same age. One feeling the devastation of having lost her child and the other knowing how devastated she would be if she lost hers, and the hug came naturally. 

I will always remember this young woman's beautiful smile. She was sweet, caring and a talented artist. She is also a life lost way too soon.