Why Some Souls Depart This Life Early

In over 15 years of doing spiritual readings, I’ve had to deal with some very difficult questions from clients who have suffered extreme loss or trauma.

One of the most heartbreaking, however, is making sense of the death of an infant, child, or young adult, sometimes after a cruel and very unpredictable death.

Grieving the death of a young person can bring up some of the most profound and challenging emotions. While it is never easy to address this kind of loss with grieving parents and relatives, Spirit has been consistent in its guidance over the years.

Although I have been spared the loss of someone so young in my own life, I am no stranger to it. I have supported many families in this regard over the years, both professionally and in my personal life.

The first time I realized how fragile life really is, was when I was only 12 years old. I was looking forward to the summer vacation from school. One of my classmates who lived down the street and her family had relatives visiting for the summer. Two of the visiting cousins were more or less our age, so I had a nice group of girl playmates for the season!

There was also the younger brother of the visiting cousins, who was only six years old. He was an adorable child with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a freckled face full of mischief. He followed his two sisters, my girlfriend, and me wherever we went during those carefree days. I did not mind having him around and even encouraged the others to let him play hide-and-seek and many other childhood games with us.

This body is not me; I am not limited by this body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, and I have never died ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Sadly, the summer passed quickly and soon the visitors returned home and my friend and I went back to school. But about two weeks into the new school year, she came to me before class with a distraught look on her face.

“My little cousin had an accident,” she said. “He died.”

Apparently, he had been playing in an abandoned old building in his neighborhood and somehow fell about 30 feet, fracturing his skull.

I had no words. At the tender age of 12, I simply did not know how to react. All I could think of was that it was impossible. He was such a happy, vibrant boy? I had just spent an entire summer vacation with this boy and could not comprehend that he was gone!

The question is, why did my young friend’s soul choose to leave life so early? After all, he was only six years old?

Over the years, Spirit has consistently shown me that our souls are incarnated in a physical body to experience earthly existence. This allows our soul to learn what it needs to evolve to a more significant, enlightened level of existence and higher consciousness. In some cases, however, a soul may only embark on an earthly journey for a short period of time for a variety of reasons:

Soul Lessons

The physical life experience, including its many challenges and hardships, is a series of lessons for both the individual soul and those around it. Our souls choose certain life challenges prior to incarnation in order to learn certain lessons or to fulfill certain spiritual goals. Hardships are predetermined by the soul itself as necessary for its evolution and fulfillment of its mission on Earth.

The challenges, sufferings, and difficulties we encounter in life are therefore not merely random or punitive, but serve a deeper purpose in our soul’s growth and development. The untimely passing of a child is sometimes a soul lesson or catalyst for growth and spiritual development that the soul has chosen as part of its soul journey.

Our soul experiences growth and healing through the process of reincarnation. Each life is preplanned to provide the soul with lessons and opportunities to evolve ~ Michael Newton

Transitional Soul Plan

Some souls come into the physical world with the specific purpose of staying for only a short time. These “transition souls” come to gather information, to teach or heal others, to fulfill certain soul contracts, to bring people together, or to complete a certain part of their spiritual growth journey. Their short lives usually have a profound impact on those around them, teaching lessons of love, resilience, and the interconnectedness of life and death.

A soul may therefore choose as part of their soul plan to leave early for their own growth or to fulfill specific spiritual lessons for themselves or others. Once they have fulfilled their soul purpose or mission on earth, they return to the spirit realm. From the soul’s perspective, therefore, their mission is completed as intended when they transition, even if it appears to our human understanding that a young life was tragically cut short.

I was comforted to learn, for example, that my childhood friend’s death was not in vain. In time, it led to new regulations for stricter safety measures in public places to prevent similar accidents. So, his bereaved family is aware of at least one way in which his death served humanity. He made the ultimate sacrifice, but his soul has since been richly rewarded as part of its evolutionary journey.

Karmic Release

Our souls also experience the results of actions from our past lives. This is related to the concepts of karma and reincarnation, where the soul evolves through different lifetimes, and an early death is sometimes part of that spiritual growth journey.

For example, an early departure may be related to the resolution or balancing of certain karmic debts. The soul departs when it has achieved what it set out to do, or when continuing would not serve its highest good or that of others involved. This departure could also mean a karmic adjustment for the soul group or community associated with the soul.

However, death is never due to “bad” karma or “paying a price for wrongdoing.” I have often been asked if someone died because of their karmic debts, and my honest professional opinion is absolutely not! Karma is about soul learning, growth and evolution. Nothing more and nothing less. An early departure is rather because that soul has completed an earth mission or wants to achieve spiritual ascension earlier, nothing else. In short, it is about progression, not punishment.

It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had ~ Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

Divine Intervention

The early departure of a soul from this earthly realm is sometimes an act of divine intervention or heavenly intercession to spare the child from possible unnecessary suffering or extreme hardship that would have occurred in the future had they continued their life journey.

The imminent danger or doom from which they are being protected is often due to the significant unraveling or major breaches of soul agreements they had with others, or the disastrous free will choices and co-created reality of family members or relatives, their community, or even an entire society or nation. The life experience that the soul originally agreed to is significantly altered or derailed by the bad choices and actions of others around them, which not only ruins their soul plan for this lifetime, but also places them in physical, psychological, or spiritual harm. For their highest good they are then called back to return to the spirit realm.

Abandoned Mission

Sometimes it is the soul’s own free choice to abandon its life mission, which it decides to do in agreement with Spirit and the Divine, for reasons that those who are left behind in this life cannot possibly understand. While a soul may choose certain lessons or experiences prior to incarnation, the free will exercised in life may lead to deviations from these plans. Sometimes an early departure is the soul’s free will choice to deviate from the original intended path.

If you have experienced or are currently experiencing the early passing of a young loved one, I pray that this information will be somehow comforting or at least helpful to you.

It’s also important to acknowledge that the above perspectives are deeply personal and can vary widely even within the same religious or spiritual tradition. Many people find comfort in their faith’s teachings about life after death and the purpose of life, including the lives of children who die young. Others may not subscribe to any spiritual reasoning, focusing instead on the medical, social, or environmental factors involved. Conversations about this topic should always be approached with sensitivity and respect for different beliefs and experiences.