132 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
male friend retaliated by shooting and killing Heather’s friend. Though not
sure, Heather did not believe that her friend used any major derogatory word.
Heather believed that the teen girl’s feelings were hurt because Heather’s
friend did not return the teen girl’s romantic advances.IntroductionMarie (16) and Heather (17), two African American teen girls living in a large
Northeastern city in the United States, spoke about their bereavement and
feelings after losing friends due to homicide. They spoke to me as part of a proj-
ect that explored the adolescent bereavement experiences of African American
teen girls who had lost friends due to murder. Marie and Heather attended the
same high school, though they were not part of each other’s circle of friends.
The neighborhood in which they lived and attended high school was, and
remains, a low socioeconomic community challenged by high levels of vio-
lence. Marie’s and Heather’s words provide insight regarding the complex
nature of losing friends to homicide. Their words, though brief, are revealing.
While the words are particular to their experiences, the themes captured in
their words suggest the challenges of the bereavement process for teens who
grieve the violent deaths of friends. The themes in the narratives of Heather,
Marie, and the other participants in the project are captured in the words—
sudden, random and unpredictable, senseless, painful, and hard.Sudden... Just like that
Marie and Heather used the phrase “just like that” to characterize the sud-
den and violent nature of the deaths and loss of their friends. These three
words hold so much meaning. For Marie, the shock that accompanied hear-
ing the news that her friend, a peer, had been murdered is apparent. Caught
completely off guard, Marie’s statement reflects how she was stopped in her
tracks, that this news was an immediate and encompassing disruption to her.
In her quote, she describes how she seems to be cognitively and emotionally
frozen, as if needing time to absorb what she has just heard. She even says
that she “didn’t know how to react.” Traditional bereavement literature sup-
ports Marie’s experience of shock as a common reaction to hearing the news of
the sudden and unanticipated violent death of someone close (Johnson, 2010;
Rando, 1996).
Heather’s use of the phrase, “just like . . . like that” captures something
slightly different. Her words suggest a realization of an ephemeral quality to
life. Her words suggest an internalization of the idea that life can be transitory,
even capricious. Moreover, Heather’s words communicate that she has cog-
nitively assimilated awareness that this loss is not only abrupt, but also final.
She goes on to say “You’re never going to live again,” as she became teary. Her
friend will not experience the rest of his life. In both Marie’s and Heather’s use
of the phrase, both indicate that their worlds have been forever changed in an
instant, “just like that.” They have become survivor-friends (Sklar & Hartley,
1990) who will never have the real presence of their friends in their lives again.