Supporting my friend whose young son took his life?

[LoveRules]

My poor poor friend lost her wonderful 20 year old son to suicide on Saturday.

A few of us are wishing we could do more than nothing to support from afar.

We'll get a crowdfunding initiative set up to help with funeral costs and will call/text to say we are thinking of them but other than that is there anything we can do.
Cook ready meal vouchers?

If i thought it was helpful I'd take time off work and drive up to be there but I don't think it would be. Definitely will be for the funeral when it is arranged.

Her son's birthday will be in spring so wondering if I should be there for that.

Any thoughts or ideas very much appreciated we are all thrown by this horrific tragedy. Every parents worst nightmare

Does she have anyone local with her?

They do. Thank you. Lots of local friends and work colleagues. It's us old school friends who feel unable to know what to do beyond regular textual thinking of you and crowd funding for a funeral.

Compassionate Friends helped my friend when her son died by suicide.
The Compassionate Friends (tcf.org.uk)

Just be there for her, physically if you can.

I'm so sorry for your friend. I haven't lost a child, but I had a close shocking death, the thing I really appreciated was meals being prepared and cooked for me that I could just heat up (because you really do forget to eat/are too shocked/numb to cook). I also really appreciated the friend who paid and arranged for a dog walker for my dog.

I got countless flowers and plants, which were lovely and thoughtful of course, and I did appreciate them, but it really was the practical stuff I appreciated the most.

I also really appreciated the friends who just sent a heart emoji each day over whatsapp. It's sounds such a small and insignificant thing, but I found messages with words of sympathy a bit exhausting because I felt obliged to think of something to write back, but the daily heart meant so much because I knew they were thinking of me every day but I didn't have to formulate a reply: I could just answer with a heart back. It sounds daft reading that back, but that's how I felt at the time.

Thank you those are really helpful and sorry for your losses.

I think the local friends will have the immediate period covered. What often gets missed is the period in the weeks, months and years after. Friends move on and forget but the bereavement takes its toil after the initial shock has worn off. Remember the dates (his birthday, the day he died, Christmas) and be available for her then. In a year, or two or five.

I second the idea of making sure to remember the dates.
My son lost a close friend to suicide at 15. It's the 10 year anniversary this year and he will be getting together with another mutual friend. It never goes away.

I attended a funeral last week of a colleague's young daughter who died by suicide. In his eulogy, her father said "don't be afraid to say her name".

In time perhaps offer to fundraiser for a MH or suicide prevention charity. Maybe something you can all participate in as group. I think PP is right, once this initial shock and grief is over, its the weeks, months and years that follow where friends can show they haven't forgotten him.

You could club together and buy a beautiful tree in a giant pot in his memory, together with a garden seat for her. So she can sit beside it and remember him. Not at all the same, but when we lost our first baby after years of trying, I found having a tree in their memory very comforting and a friend who lost a son at a very young age felt the same - a memorial spot in her garden helped.

You could write some lovely memories of him - your own recollections of funny or sweet things he did or said, at any age. If you have photos of him you could put them together in a frame or book for her.

Totally agree with this.

Instead of ready meal vouchers, choose the ready meals yourself and put them in their freezer, so on days when they’re in absolute pieces they can just go to the freezer and get food out without having to think.

Oh just seen you’re far away. Can you club together with a friend who lives locally to stock their freezer with ready meals?

Found this and posting here in case anyone reading this thread finds it useful

uksobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SOBS-Booklet-portable.pdf

If you're all school friends wisely dispersed what about a flower subscription from you all?

I'm about six months into this now, just absolutely horrendous. Nothing will ever be the same again.

My close friend and ex colleague lost her son last summer. We worked together for twenty years and she was my office manager.

She called me that day, I think through shock. I drove over the next day. I wasn't sure that was much help but she said she could remember me being there and sitting with her.

Then the funeral. No words.

As time has gone on i think I have found my role harder.

Grief has moved to rage, understandably so. She has set up a wonderful place and fundraiser which is helping. Things have been discovered which have hurt her more.

Christmas, awful.

It's the fact that everything now sounds wrong

How are you?
What did you do today?
The kids are playing up?
I've had a rubbish day?

Nothing compares to what she is going through and I wish I could just make it better.

She struggles with carrying other peoples grief. So she goes for a walk and someone cries in the street, but then she struggles when someone crosses the road.

We navigate together, a small group of us with her and are stumbling along trying to find a path.

If you want to go and see her, go. Sometimes it's not about being useful, it's about being there. Same goes for after the funeral as others have said. The funeral itself she asks me who was there. Just a blur.

Flowers are so well meant but honestly, in my experience they were just yet another thing I had to do, and a constant reminder of death in the house. The best things for me were meals I could just reheat, company, and daily check in texts (with no pressure to reply).

Thanks again all.

I thought it will be straightforward to send some nutritious hearty Cook frozen meals but stumbled at the pack sizes being Meals for 1, 2 or 4. Until the weekend they were a family a four and now are three so feel the family packs will be triggering. Maybe need to get a mix of 1 & 2 people meals.

I'm checking in with her but appreciate this is the beginning of a terrible journey she nor anyone else wants to be on.
She wants to die. She can't bear the pain. It's too horrendous for us to comprehend.

There's a Samaritans sponsored Snowdonia expedition in the summer I might see if her extended girlfriends fancy doing together.

Rather than ready meal vouchers I would be taking round home cooked meals. And I agree about anniversaries.. when the time comes.

@lmhj1 Well done. It's a long committment.
I mentioned above about my son's friend. They support Papyrus which is dedicated to prevention of suicide in young people. Suicide is the biggest cause of death in under 35s,

It's life changing. Be prepared that she stops being the person you once knew.

I'm not sure you should put this on an open forum as it might be identifying because not many people have a DC commit suicide. I'd really ask to have it removed, just in case your df is on MN, or she has friends who are, who might tell her you have posted this. It is very personal.

Definitely home cooked. It'll make her feel cared for.

I was bereaved 12 weeks ago, very sudden and unexpectedly.
I think the main things you can do are check in regularly, and remember her, as time goes on people just stop asking.
It's only been 12 weeks for me and already it feels like people have forgotten, I have this gaping hole in my life, the reality of my loss takes my breath away several times a day, I feel like I'm loving outside of myself, and people have just forgotten.

Cook dinners for her, send flowers, text and tell her you are thinking of her and her poor boy, say his name. But most importantly, keep it up. Don't disappear after two months and expect her to be ok. She won't be. Ever again.

I wouldn’t send flowers. I would send a card with a heartfelt note in it, expressing to her you are there for her. I think, as someone else said, being there as a solid presence long term is the best you can do.