Following a friend's suicide, our 15-year-old son is having an extremely hard time, experiencing suicidal thoughts and visible depression. And while he is very sad and shocked at losing his friend, his primary reason is that 'life is meaningless' which is something he tells us that he realized way before the tragedy. We are seeing a psychologist and he confirmed that 'this is serious' however 'we have to be patient as time will tell' etc. I of course want to be patient but I also want to be in the best position possible to support our son. How to explain to him that life is not meaningless? And if it is, that it would not become less meaningless with him dying to suicide? ---------- (From a post addressing one of the answers:) Thank you so much for taking the time to answer, Rororo and dxh. I believe that everyone answering is getting the point, finding proper words to describe exactly the situation is in itself challenging. I agree that using the wrong words or even wrong reasoning can lead to bad consequences. He has suicidal thoughts because 'life is meaningless'. Hence my question is how I can support him to transition out of this period that is darkened by this type of thoughts and I am actually exploring what is the best way to explain that 'absolute truths' are not the way to go and support him to become interested in living his life to discover new truth and meaning. Rororo you have rightly indicated that my son is an atheist while I am religious (we do not debate around this).