Too Young To Die But Old Is The Grave

The title is a line from the song "The Bucket" by The Kings of Leon.  It's actually a great song that's not nearly as morbid as individual lines from it sound.  Unfortunately, this blog is going to be as morbid as the title indicates.  I apologize in advance. 

(Former) students from my high school are dropping like proverbial flies.  Really, it's ridiculous.  I don't think any comparative, suburban high school has lost this many students.  The latest fatality was a member of the Class of 2005 who died in a fiery car crash.  His friend (who was 24 and a graduate from another local school) lost control of his BMW M3, crashed and the car went up in flames.  The kid from my high school was the brother of a girl I'm friendly with whom I graduated with, and the son of a woman that I worked with one summer.  When I read "BMW M3" in the newspaper, I knew that the crash was speed/racing related.  Sadly, I was right.  

The news came out yesterday that Laura, who died in January, did in fact die of acute alcohol intoxication.  The people commenting on the article from the local newspaper are infuriating.  I'd love to tell them what their kids are doing on the weekends.  Karma is a b*tch, though - I hope they know that. I truly hate the culture of my generation.  I wish we'd cut the crap, and stop killing and defaming ourselves.  

In recent months there have been deaths from graduates a bit older than me, but still too young to die.  One young man committed suicide and another died while playing lacrosse (a serious kind of irony since lacrosse is the biggest freakin' deal in my town).  Several years back a young boy died when his family got hit by a drunk driver coming back from vacation.  They say that his ejection from the vehicle saved his sister's life, but he was very young - I want to say he was no more than 12 years old.  Another boy died at 15 years old because of natural causes.  He was dwarfed and had heart problems, but it was tragic nonetheless.  I feel like I'm missing people here, and that's even more sad.  

I'm going to update the tally I made in January and amend it to include those who have died that I attended high school with (you know, just to narrow it down):

Class of 2005: 1

Class of 2007: 2

Class of 2008: 1

Class of 2009: 3

Yeah, 7 sounds like too big of a number to me, too - especially considering the narrowed parameters.

Ok, I'm done.