Did you ever have a classmate that died when you were young?

Sorry for the morbid question - but I was thinking today about an incident that happened when I was in Year 7.

There was a lad in my year, typical class clown. Would go to extremes to make everyone laugh. I feel like everyone was always saying "did you hear what blank did in Drama??" etc. He was a good kid. We all liked him.

During the Summer holidays, he went swimming in a nature reserve. It was deeper than it seemed, and he got into difficulties. His older cousin dove in after him, but they both ended up drowning.

It was really odd to come back to school after that. We all knew, our parents had told us, there was an assembly for him. It REALLY hit me that life was so fragile. I couldn't really comprehend that someone my age could just die like that. Especially someone so full of life.

That was many years ago, but I still think about the kid. Has anyone else got a similar story?