How do you comfort someone whose child just died?

With honest feeling: The grieving parent does need the tolerance and support of their frients. It is important to state the obvious, you are concerned for how they are and express the desire to help if you can. Avoid the disasterous " i know how you feel" unless you went thru the exact same thing. Keep in contact periodicly with spontaneous calls, don't expect them to reach out to you.

Grieving a child: Your presence and silence sometime is the best comfort initially. But if the grieving person is not only disabled from daily activities for too long (for example more than 3 months) but her health worsens, she-he needs treatment for "complicated grief" which is very different from treating depression.