Article posted Wednesday, September 21, 2011 3:15pm

Dear Mary Pat,

A friend of mine from high school was killed in a freak accident last week involving a semi truck. He wasn’t someone I was ever very close with, but that didn’t make it any less sad. He was in his late 30s, very kind, happily married, and came from a wonderful family (who is obviously grief stricken). I went online to find the obituary and came across the newspaper link describing the accident. It was very brief and matter of fact, which you would expect from a newspaper. What you wouldn’t expect would be strangers commenting on the article, particularly when they had nothing but cruel, insensitive things to say. The accident occurred while my friend was working construction and several people commented how “stupid” my friend must have been to get hit by this truck. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I don’t really have an etiquette question here, but I was just wondering what in the world would make a person leave comments like that?

Signed,

Sad and Bewildered

Dear Sad and Bewildered,

There is obviously no good answer to your question. I can’t comprehend how someone could be so callous about the death of a man, as well as the pain of others possibly involved (such as the driver of the truck, co-workers who witnessed this, the family reading the same article). When we see so many terrible things on the nightly news, our eyes can gloss over and we can’t always empathize with everyone. That’s a product of sensory overload perhaps. However, not being empathetic is a far jump to trolling the Internet to thoughtlessly and recklessly leave comments about someone else’s tragedy.

Try to put these ugly comments out of your head. The people who left them are not worth your consideration and should be pitied. What a pathetic way to spend your time.

Good luck,

Mary Pat