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[quote=Anonymous]I am posting this in the Family Relationships forum because this issue really does deal with family relationships - mainly how to handle grief at death.

My dear friend from high school lost her brother three weeks ago in a freak accident. She does not live in the US anymore (we are all in our late twenties) but is scraping by in her and her brother's native country, where she now lives with her widower father. (Their mother died when we were in high school).

Since the family is struggling, we all contributed to the funeral expenses on a crowdfunding campaign so financially everything was taken care of. But now that three weeks have passed and the funeral is long since over, I don't know what kind of grieving process my friend is going through. She is the kind who retreats into her shell. But I imagine losing your brother, when they were only one year apart and were each other's closest friends, must be insanely hard. Especially since she lost her mother over a decade ago too. And her father is old, sick and living on his pension, which isn't much. She's staying with him both out of financial necessity and to look after him.

I can't physically fly to their country because I'm married, working every day, and it's expensive.

I have made phone calls, but now I am not sure whether I should give her space, or whether she feels lonely. And I don't know if we should continue talking about our memories of her brother, or if that's too painful and I should talk to her about frivolous stuff like the Avengers movie.

If any of you have lost a sibling or another close family member, what would you have appreciated from overseas friends? What did you lack the most in your grieving process? What feelings did you go through?[/quote]

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