Sad news... that strangely affect me

It is very strange.

8 weeks ago, my daughter Caitlin was born. About a week later, I did a google search to find out if anyone on the net had the same name as her including family name, and came across an entry of a girl in her high school yearbook over in Alabama in the States. The picture is from that site. I told my wife what a coincidence that was, because our family name is rather rare - to find it combined with the equally rare name Caitlin was peculiar.

This Friday, I did the search again - not even sure why - and came across incredibly sad news that this Caitlin I had found previously had died in a car crash at the end of November. She was on her way home in the night and apparently lost control over her car and died at the scene. Just 17 years old...

I didn't know this girl, yet reading about the story in the internet editions of the newspapers and her uni's internet site strangely have a very compelling impact on me - I feel as if there had been some connection. Yet all I knew about her was from her yearbook and now from the obituaries written by her friends on her myspace site. She seems like she was a genuinely warm and gentle person. Rest in peace.

Our Caitlin has kept us awake a few nights again, so our levels of exhaustion are on the increase, but I find myself minding this much less after having read of her name sake's plight.