Upset for my friend's son

Sean, who just turned 15 this month, is going through something many adults haven't had to go through -- his 21-year-old cousin, to whom he was very close, was murdered on Wednesday. I go from feeling bad for him to being angry at her, even though I know she was a victim and it's really not right for me to be mad at her.

I'll call her "S" and most of her family has problems with drugs and other issues. She was actually very book smart but made mistakes -- had a kid when she was 17, got into drugs. I imagine that if you grow up in a home where your parents are doing drugs from the time you're born and abuse you, you tend to fall into that pattern no matter how smart you are. I realize that doesn't always happen, but in this case it did. I remember how mad Sean was when she got pregnant, and he was only 11-12 at the time. She was older than him but he told her what he thought (lol) because he cared about her.

Anyway, apparently she met some guy on MySpace and, instead of meeting him in a public place like many people know to do (and I KNOW she knew better), she actually got into the car with him. They found her body stabbed to death later. I currently don't know more details than that, and that they know she didn't die quickly but bled to death. We are pretty sure that either she was drugged up on something and wasn't thinking clearly, or was getting drugs and that's the reason she acted in such a manner.

Poor Dana was driving Sean to his dad's on Thursday when his dad called her on her cell phone and told her. She had to pull off the road and tell Sean, who of course lost it. Poor guy -- she said he was practically hyperventilating because he was so upset, and that in his 15 years she's never seen him like that before. I imagine the shock that she died and in the manner she died just totally unhinged him. I was very upset and I had only met her twice a few years ago. She spent a lot of time at his dad's house. To be fair to his dad, of whom I'm not very fond, I think he and his wife tried to help her. Dana said that when she and he were married they had those kids over on weekends a lot because they were abused at home.

Ugh. The whole thing just has me feeling awful. I feel bad for Sean of course -- I love the kid and hate to see him in such pain. I feel bad for the 3-year-old who will never really know her mom. I feel bad for the parents, who after all these years finally went to rehab and just got out a week ago. I wonder what this will do to them and if it will send them back into their drug-induced state. Then I wonder if S's kid will end up living with them and if the cycle will continue.

The good thing about this is Sean and his friends know that this kind of thing can happen to anyone, not just people on the news who they don't know. He and his friends have changed some things they had on their computers and I think it's been a real wake-up call. They did find the guy who did this to her, which is also good.

I just feel so bad for Sean. He's a good kid and I feel like he keeps getting the raw end of things when it comes to family. I thank God that Dana has custody of him and that his home life is usually pretty stable at home with her and Deron.