Death Of The Young Analysis

When the reaper snuffs out a life he takes with him many things. Some of the many things that death takes with him is the hope for that person to do something amazing in this world, the connections that the deceased person has made throughout their life, and lastly the knowledge collected throughout the life of that person. Age has a huge role to play with death because with different ages comes different feelings of loss. The death of the young (usually between 0-18 years old) carries a tremendous feeling of wasted potential; however, when an elder dies (someone who has lived 65 years or more) tons of information about our history is erased from this world never to be passed along to future generations. These points are just the tip of the iceberg as to why age is a major influence …show more content…
Although the loss of any life burdens society, the deaths of the young and the old members of society create the biggest impact. The first thing that is important to understand is what makes these specific age ranges deaths so important to society. The young are members of society that have not contributed much to society. This may beg the question of why their death should be weighted higher than working adults who contribute to society. The reason for this is plain and simple. They are the future. The death of the young leads to the loss of this future potential. The National Institutes of Health's Dr. Jonathan Kaltman speaks of the loss of a child to society, “The sudden death of a child is tragic and the impact on families and society is incalculable,”(“NIH and CDC Launch Registry for Sudden Death in the Young”). This statement is important because it is talking about the value of these children to society. These young people had the potential to do so much with their lives, but instead they died early on. That level of uncertainty of how valuable they could have been is burned into society, and a loss of too many young can negatively