How can someone explain to grieving families that age 7.5 was half a lifetime?

Why can't life work like baseball, where a batter can make two mistakes before exiting after the third time?

What does society learn from teenage tragedy?

When young people in good health die suddenly, more questions can often be left than answers, with the chief one -- why -- being the great unknown. It can be hard to justify why a sophomore in high school or a freshly-graduated young man were summoned to exit this world for whatever lies beyond when so many of their fellow teenagers and fresh adults are not accustomed to dealing with mortality head-on.

Yet that's the struggle the Battlefield High School community was forced to embrace last week following the deaths of 15-year-old Derek Meffert and 18-year-old Stephen Dixon in what a police report suggested was the likely result of a late-night drunk driving accident that left another man and woman recovering in the hospital.

Somewhere between 150 and 200 students gathered inside the school building just outside the doors for the gymnasium entrance Aug. 18 to pay their respects to their lost friends.

Meffert's classmate and friend Kaitlyn Arnold helped put together the purple ribbons and collection of candles distributed amongst the students, family members, friends and school staffers that congregated in front of the school trophy case to remember Meffert and Dixon.

Meffert's older sister Amanda called her kid brother her "biggest fan," something which he returned toward him.

"There were a lot of times when I didn't have confidence or was sad or confused and Derek was there with an answer," said Amanda through tears. "He's the most special person in my life because there's only two of us. And there'll always be two of us."

Dane Howard, Meffert's best friend, reminded the assembled mass that "He was always there for anyone. If you were sad, he would make you laugh. If you needed someone, he was there."

Howard added that Meffert could confront life's "biggest fears and smile right in front of you."

Reciting a popular poem dealing with death, Arnold read aloud, "Go rest now precious one, Your life in eternity has just begun. Now you can walk, your legs are brand new. All of heaven is now in your view."

A letter from Dixon's sister, as read by a friend, humanized the 18-year-old as someone wore a hat that didn't necessarily match his clothes, someone who enjoyed Ramen noodles, blasting music in his c and Guitar Hero. Lastly, he loved anyone and everyone and everyone here is in his heart."

Travis Dunn, one of Dixon's best friends, said this type of accident could happen to anyone but it was hard to comprehend now that it hit close to home.

"I hope that everybody here can... go out, be reckless, do whatever you've got to do. Designate a driver," warned Dunn before reciting a poem. "You can shed tears that he is gone or you can smile because he has lived."

In a moment that caused many eyes to glisten and tear ducts to swell, Dixon's friends Lonnie Kadir and Conner Doyle performed an acoustic song they wrote in the day leading up to the event.

Kadir, singing in a falsetto tuning while Doyle sat on a chair strumming chords on his guitar, held a sheet of paper in front of him with his left hand and looked to the ceiling every so often.

"But I know you're in a better place, where the grass is greener and shines on your face," Kadir sang, microphone in hand. "Bro, I love you."

During a following moment of silence, voices cracked and choked back sniffled. Josh Custer then told one final self-composed poem before the final closing and subsequent candle lighting that took place outside.

"He was doing good life and he had a ball," said Custer of Dixon. "I still can't believe I had to witness his fall."

Outside, Meffert's father Peter could be heard giving those around him one last word of caution after Pastor Mark Olsen of Shepard of the Hills Church said a prayer and before Kadir led a rendition of "Amazing Grace."

"Remember, you don't always get a second chance," said Peter.

Vigil

That same night away from Battlefield, back at the site of the crash, another smaller vigil took place. A walk down Logmill Road from Parnell court revealed three markers planted in the grass on the north side of the road. White and yellow sunflowers adorned a cross on the one furthest east, closest to the base of Bull Run Mountain. The next, against the black wooden fence, laid a blue vase with purple, red and yellow flowers sprouting out from above a white and red sign reading "Derek" in block letters. A red-and-seafoam green-trimmed sombrero laid on its side to the west side of the vase.

Then, down below, as dusk gave way to night, gathered Alex Holden, Corey Smith, Joe Eitler, Colleen Whitehouse and Devin Gosain around a white tube-like vase that gave way to a patch of roses protruding from its middle.

Having known Dixon since eighth grade, Holden described his "loyal," late best friend as someone with a "contagious personality" who could not be "bummed for 30 seconds." Smith described Dixon as the "nicest kid you'd ever meet."

"When he laughed, everyone would laugh," said Holden not long after Whitehouse mentioned Dixon had "such a good smile."

Smith recalled a verbal fight they go into over a girl back in high school at Lake Braddock that was supposed to lead to an altercation. When both of them arrived, "we just started laughing," said Smith, adding that they hugged instead. "He was too nice of a guy."

An actual fight between Holden and Dixon left Dixon calling Holden for days afterward, just so he could apologize.

"He called me literally three times a day," said Holden, wearing a "Bruins" hoodie and jeans as Smith stood to his right off of the north side of Logmill Road. "He came up and said, 'I'm sorry.' That was the kind of person he was."