It makes me shake my head when I hear law enforcement or investigators or anyone saying that someone didn’t have an appropriate reaction to grief. There is no standard appropriate reaction. Absence of tears or sadness does not mean absence of grief. People who make statements like this plant erroneous ideas in the minds of other people of how someone should act under stress. I’ve seen it countless hundreds of times. People are quiet, people laugh and joke, people are nervous, there is no one reaction. Anyone who says someone did not have an appropriate emotional reaction to grief simply has a pre-conceived notion of what the response should be.<\/p>\n