If you've ever wondered why every society has so many carefully delineated, formal rituals surrounding death -- the sending of flowers, the publishing of obits,

If you've ever wondered why every society has so many carefully delineated, formal rituals surrounding death -- the sending of flowers, the publishing of obits, the ritualized expressions of sorrow, the formal funerals -- now you know. If you've ever wondered why, after every major tragedy that affects a public gathering like a school, the local news reports that teams of grief counselors are being dispatched to the scene -- well, now you know. Grief counselors are trained to listen to people who are in shock. People in shock say strange things. Half of them are oversensitive, the other half tries to whistle past the graveyard, and if you put both halves in the same room and ask them to counsel each other the results can be really ugly, as we appear to have discovered. (I didn't read the original thread myself, though. I see enough pain in the course of life.) All threads need moderators, but sometimes real life also needs moderators, and that's what grief counselors are for. I recently had a friend-of-friends die suddenly in an accident. The range of responses was interesting. Some of his friends dissolved into tears. Some took pains to offer expressions of forgiveness and acceptance. Some raged against the cause of the accident. Some raged against the deceased. Some switched from one approach to another on a sentence by sentence basis. Shock. That's how it works. Someone with a large amount of intestinal fortitude and an even larger amount of malpractice insurance should start up an online grief counseling service.