Here's a story about someone that I'm kind of related to. My brother-in-law, with whom I am fairly close, lost his dad when he was a toddler in a plane crash. His dad was an AF pilot and I think that he died on a training mission. It was in 1958. My BIL, Andy, was then adopted and raised by his stepdad.
I've never known much about him other than what is stated above but Andy put a nice tribute to him on FB this year for Memorial Day. His dad was 29 years old with two small children that he never got to see grow up. He never got to see Andy play college baseball and become a heart surgeon, or see him marry another young MD, (my baby sister), and raise some great kids. I know that a version of this story could be repeated millions of times for all of the tragic losses of our most valuable resource but this is ours.
Here are a couple of photos I'd never seen and the last one is Andy visiting his dad's grave with his kids about 20 years ago:
