"I am guessing I am a lot like you."

"I was 16 when you died, and you seemed so old. It is only now, today that I can understand that yours was a life only half lived and still with so much to come. When you died, I knew what I d lost, what a gaping hole there was in my life, and indeed still is. But I didnt see how it was for you. To me you inhabited that older world, and I somehow imagined that there was sufficient compensation in your achievements to allow you to leave this world. I am staggered to realise now, that there is so much of my life still in front of me. I am devastated at the thought that your life was cut short. You were young when you died, I understand that now."
The lady who wrote this letter had just reached 44...the age at which her Mum died.