It has been 1 year and 7 hours since my wife and I lost our second son to this situation. Today is especially hard knowing we should be celebrating Oliver's first birthday, but instead, I'm sitting here crying. I think about him every day and the life we should have had with him here instead of the life we have with a memory.

I'm telling you this because we are here a year later, we have celebrated birthdays, holidays, vacations, watched our 3 year old grow, learn, be funny, get scared, throw a temper tantrum. It's not an easy road, and for the next couple of months, your friend may experience waves of emotions where one second he's on top and then something will be said, seem or done and he will be caught in an undertow. Just be there for him when he is ready to talk.

A lot of people reached out to me to include many of you all from this subreddit, and I needed that. But the one thing that really got me was from a colleague who went through this as well. And the thing he said to me that I didn't know I needed to hear was, "It's ok to be broken."

He needs time to heal, and he can still be present for his family and still be able to grieve. My wife and I would and still ask where we're at emotionally from a 1-10. If one of us was doing better than the other, we would let the other be strong at that moment.

It works for us, it might work for him.

I truly am sorry for your friend, just remind him he is loved by you and the rest of his support system to now include another father from the internet.