Where do we look when one of us is gone?

Last Saturday morning, the 19-year-old son (and grandson and great-grandson) of family friends was killed in a dirt bike accident. I went to the calling hours last night. Outside the funeral home, the parking lot was filled with young people, talking, crying, smoking cigarettes, staring off to some other place, stunned that one of their number was really, truly, irrevocablly gone.
Inside, the parents, sisters, and grandmother were drawing strength from the stream of visitors. "People are so wonderful," the grandmother told me.
A few months ago, another young man was killed in an automobile accident. Then, as now, the rush of stunned grief brought young and old together, as in a whirlpool that spins us together and then apart.
Those of us who are also a score or two beyond the teenage years will will also look back with a bit of shudder at how close many of us came to not making past 19. Not only did we take chances and make bad decisions (no surprise there), but, most importantly, I think that few of us knew how important we were. It isn't just the grief that's shown at the wakes and funerals. It's in that silence that comes when we turn to our friend and ask, "So, what do you think?" There's no answer because our friend is gone. We look and our friend isn't there. We listen and our friend isn't there. No matter how hard we look and listen, it's empty and quiet because our friend isn't there.