Apophenia and making sense of loss on a Friday night

When something bad happens, our pattern-seeking tendencies sometimes make us look for answers where there probably aren't any. This time around, it's given me an irrational annoyance about Friday nights

I was having a conversation with my wife yesterday, about which word is more heartbreaking: 'dead' or 'died'. She suggested 'dead', given its sense of finality. For me, 'died' seems much worse, as it evokes a sense of recency; of immediate, raw pain that hasn't had a chance to kick in yet, let alone subside.

We were travelling back from seeing my aunt and my nana, and we were having the conversation because my uncle has just died, of an unknown liver complication. It was unexpected and sudden. He was only 66.