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Notes -
This seems counterintuitive. When an 8 year old dies, the grief is extraordinarily concentrated. Nothing compares to the loss of a child, but beyond the parents, living (and cognitively sound) grandparents, and to some extent close siblings of the parents, grieving is often limited. Even child siblings of the deceased (say a 4 year old sister and 6 year old brother) often don’t grieve in the same way as adults.
When an 85 year old dies, their funeral is often, perhaps even mostly, attended by people who’ve known them their entire lives, from people they grew up with whose attention now turns to their own final years and the memories of youth to children who have known them for 50+ years. Someone who was always there is now no longer there.
A child’s funeral (excepting the close relations above) is deeply sad because of the great tragedy of a life not lived. But that’s a tragedy in a general sense. The funeral of someone old is deeply sad on a much more personal, immediate level.
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