I agree. To call it tone deaf is to be kind.

It’s a dreadful loss for both, to be sure. But one died in an accident of his own making and the other was killed in the accident created by irresponsibility. Not the same grieving process at all, how well I know.

Further, the boy’s mother had other children. The girl’s mother did not. That changes things too when there are no other children dragging you out of your grief because you have to be present for them.

Nothing but an empty room. A lost future. A void that won’t ever be filled. And years to go feeling like your life can never be more than a desolate and aimless scrap of existence because you’ve lost continuity.

It’s not the same at all.

Her blithe accounting is, in fact, cruel and shallow.