Reply to Friend's child was murdered by a family member: how should I interact with friend?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I met a new friend on a dating app.  Friend said friend has been very depressed and isolated a times because friend's child was murdered by a family member. Does anyone have any advice on how to interact with friend?  I don't think avoiding the topic completely is possible or desirable.  Triggers are everywhere. For example, I'm noticing that lots of movies and TV shows have emotional scenes involving parents and children, scenes with murders, or both. Is having a normal relationship and living a normal life even possible?  I'm interested in hearing from people who have lost children due to accidents, illness, suicide, war, or even murder, and also from people who have been in relationships with people who have lost children that way.  [/quote]

When did this happen, OP? If this is a very recent loss, this person should not be on the dating apps at all. If this is something that happened many years ago, asking gentle questions about their experience, including if they want to talk about it, would give you a sense of how it's affecting them. I have friends who have lost children and it's a really different conversation when someone loses a child to pediatric cancer vs. heroin vs. murder. It also matters pretty significantly whether this was last month or 10 years ago - not in terms of the significance of the loss, but in terms of the grief process.

Either way, one thing I know about grief and death is that thinking about "a normal life" after something earth-shattering happens to you is probably inaccurate. Things normalize, but they include grief. It's never not going to be part of this person's experience. It might not be overwhelming all day every day forever, but it will always be around.[/quote]

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