How to tell a person his loved one is dead?

by Kim
(Santa Rosa, Ca USA)

My brother in law was giving his 9 year old granddaughter a ride on his Harley Davidson motorcycle 20 days ago. An 89 year old woman turned into them and caused a horrific crash. The girl died very shortly afterward.


My brother in law's legs were crushed and he has had multiple surgeries and finally an amputation because they couldn't save his leg. He does not know about his granddaughter yet. He has been on massive amounts of pain killers and really hasn't been coherent until the last couple of days.

The doctors are taking him off the morphine IV and starting him on pain medication by mouth today. Today he asked where his daughter and granddaughter were and his wife ignored his question and changed the subject.

His wife knows she must break the news soon but she doesn't want to have to keep telling him what happened over and over but since he's been so drugged his memory isn't great day to day or even hour to hour.

We know that we have to tell him soon, we're just worried that this horrible news is going to really set him back and make him seriously depressed. He may have depression anyway, because of his loss of leg.

Any advice?