I need some help here

[Shinigami King]

http://www.wbir.com/news/article/195863/2/Mother-of-injured-Hardin-Valley-student-seeks-crash-info?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Cbc%7Clarge

One of the unnamed girls was one of my best friends & she died in the hospital early saturday morning, her funeral is a few days from now & I heard it was open-casket, & here's my dilemma, I wanna go to kind of make up for the fact that I didn't visit her in the hospital, but with the rumors of the kind of injuries she sustained, I don't know if I can handle it (which is also the reason I didn't visit her in the hospital) but if I don't go I'll probably hate myself. So I'd like to get some advice from a few people, if any, who've been through this, before I decide one way or the other.

[Bluenoser]

Ouch. That's a rough one.

When I was still in my teens I suffered a couple of close deaths, one was suicide, the other was a car accident in which the guys in the car all burned to death (It was a single car accident caused by alcohol, this is a close to 30 years back and the attitude towards drunk driving was slacker back then in this area alas). Worse, I knew my friend had died horribly because a classmate was the first person on the scene and literally heard the guys all screaming to get out, get the fire out, well you get the idea. I was furious at the time because I thought he was smarter than to be in a car with a drunk driving (I was always hardline about that sort of thing, growing up the child of an alcoholic left me rather sensitive about that sort of thing early on, not to mention also with a lot of anger/rage on the topic of alcohol and its abuse including things like drunk driving) yet I also wanted to pay my respects, it is as close to comparable in my life to what you are facing. My eventual choice was to go because I knew that if I didn't it would haunt me and leave me feeling guilty afterwards, and as angry and hurt as I was by the accident and the loss I knew that not facing it head on and doing the right thing for me by facing it despite my own real reluctance would end up doing me more harm.

Now, what is right for you only you can say. It sounds like you didn't visit in the hospital not because you were angry or anything but simply because you didn't feel you could handle/face it, do I have that correct? That you feared your reaction to her appearance from the accident and how it could make you feel. Now, if it is an open casket funeral it is likely you will not be seeing too much because the morticians will have done much that could not be done pre-death to downplay the visible signs of injury, and if it is closed casket you will not be seeing anything at all (which is what my accident death friend had done because the burn damage was too extreme). The question as you have noted already is what will scar you more from this, going and perhaps being exposed to a sight that will ever after affect your memory of your best friend, or not to go and face the self loathing and guilt for not being there at such an important time to not just pay your respects on your behalf but be there for those that were most important to your best friend (including yourself). That is ultimately something only each person can decide for themselves, but I would suggest that the less scaring in the long run is the facing the matter head on and attending even if it means seeing that which you would much prefer not to. Not attending can be a very haunting and scaring problem and one that has no good response to in my experience and observations in life, but for some it may be the only path they can take. Only you know yourself well enough to decide whether that is true for you.

I do not know how much help if any this was to you, take it for what it is worth and good luck in finding the right path for you and my deepest condolences on your clearly close and painful loss.

[lemmingllama]

For one, it is sad to lose a close friend. Now, for an open casket, they will do as much as possible to clean up a body and hide any wounds and such. So you wont have to worry about seeing the injuries. Just get out there and pay your respects, deep breath and you dont even have to look if it would make you uncomfortable

[CaNzCo]

Its hard to never move on. Right now, you may feel like this is the only way to get closer, but that may not be the case. If you choose not to go, in time you will find some other way to part with her. I think you should do whatever you feel like doing at the time. I think the last thing your friend would want is for you to be sad and stressed.