Life Advice

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Dad is horrified to learn there's a gun in the house

By Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

A "memorial" page will be a way for your brother's friends and family members (including you, if you ever chose) to remember him, view photos, and continue to feel connected, but you would not receive further birthday reminders or recommendations regarding his page. Obviously, these are very difficult and painful points of contact for you, and anyone can understand why you would be upset by these reminders, which for you are painful.

Being a survivor of a family member's death by suicide conveys a unique and terrible sort of grief. But, please, I hope you won't let your brother's death (and your painful associations and memories of his struggles) completely erase his presence from your life.

Dear Amy: I loved your answer to "Disgusted," who did not want to attend his great-nephew's bar mitzvah.

While his strong feelings are very meaningful to him, his desire to control his family's thinking and behavior around this has a fundamentalist feel to it (i.e., We must get on the same page and not have divergent thinking). I hope he can reflect on that.

-- Seattle Deb

 

Dear Deb: I appreciate your sentiment, but disagree, to some extent. Divergent thinking is a good thing, as long as we lead from a place of respect.

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(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson.com. Readers may send postal mail to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook.)


 

 

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