I have been comtemplating doing this thread for some time. Now is as good a time as any.
If you have ever lost anyone close to you in a violent or tragic way, you will likely understand the point I will try to make.
There isn't any such thing as "closure."
When a parent loses a child as a result of manevolence or gross carelessness, there isn't anything that brings closure. The term conjures up some idea that after a while, things such as life, love, and memories are made pallatable if not whole again. Guys, it just doesn't work that way. If your child or spouse or sibling is murdered, the most you can hope for is simply getting used to the hurt. Trials, punishment, memorials, scholarships, all that other stuff can be real useful in softening the hurt, but the pain endures.
I have way too much experience with this. Both of my parents died of cancer when I was a teenager. My daugher was molested when she was 11 and then assaulted again when she was 19. Her mother, my wife, abandoned us. As much as that hurt, and trust me, that stuff hurt immeasurably, it does not measure up to the pain that came from our teenaged son's suicide.
At first there is denial and shock. Don't expect rational thoughts or actions from the survivors. They will often not have even a thread of reality to hang onto. They need this irrational time. Otherwise the pain would kill them immediately.
We filed a lawsuit against the school he was attending, because we needed to shift the blame away from our son. It did not work. We only became even more aware that he did what he did because of the way he was thinking at that moment.
We started a scholarship fund. After a while, the donations stopped, and he was slowly forgotten by all but his family. His friends grew up and moved on with their lives. (Good for them.)
We talked about him in the present tense because we couldn't stand the thought of letting go of him. After a while, reality sets in and he becomes the property of the past. His place in the present was replaced with grief.
When you lose those close to you, and I mean really close, you don't just hurt on birthdays or anniversaries. You hurt every day. It is just a matter of degrees. The pain doesn't go away. You simply get used to it.
Sometimes my son's name will be brought up and my emotions visibly change. The other person will apologize for "reminding me." I have to tell them that others forgetting hurts more than the reminder does. You never forget about them, particularly if you lose a child. The pain is always there. It is simply a matter of degrees.
When you lose a teenager, you also lose them as a baby, a toddler, a rambunctious kid, and in all the other ways you remember them. Every recollection has the realization of death and loss sitting like bookends on your memories.
I didn't type this for sympathy. I wrote this because all of you at some time are going to have to deal with adults who have lost a child. Even those of us who have lost children know that the death of a child delivers that parent into their own private hell. I can have more compassion, sympathy, and empathy than those other people. But I can't take away their pain. I just understand it better.
Very few marriages survive the loss of a child. Ours didn't. Less than two months after our son's death, we ignored our 20th anniversary. It did not make us better people. It made us different people. A person's true character comes out in the midst of a tragedy. After 27 years of marriage preceeded by four years of dating, our divorce will be final shortly. It isn't an amicable break-up.
If you end up dealing with a grieving parent, please keep this stuff in mind. There is no such thing as "closure." At best, you just learn to live with it.
Oh yeah, one more point to ponder. Don't wait to have time for your kids. Teach them now. Love them now. Guide them, endure their immaturity, look past their stupidity....now.
Sometimes the future never comes.