I have a friend who lost her 26 year old son over the Christmas break. She and her husband had gone to California to visit her father, who she hadn’t seen in 10 years, and got the call to come home to Kansas. Her son had died of a medical overdose. He was alone in the house (my friend’s house) and they found him on the couch.

She brings him up now and again, and I just listen and let her talk and cry with her. She hurts because she wasn’t there. She hurts because she didn’t get to say good bye. She hurts because it was her ‘baby.’

Her talking about it isn’t overwhelming for me….it hurts, yes, but in no way does it hurt me like it does her, and she doesn’t bring it up constantly. I just listen.

She just called me, in tears. A mutual friend of ours snapped at her today that “It’s been five months! Get over it!”
She said, “Am I supposed to be over it by now?”
“God no!” I said. “You are where you are! There are no rules. I honestly don’t know how anyone could get over something like that, ever.”

She was feeling a little better when we hung up but….I was just left….speechless. How can anyone justify being so damn cruel and insensitive? How could someone just tell someone else to “get over” something like that?