Anger Or Sorrow?

Something I have come across occasionally in ministry -- and among people I know -- is a father's refusal ever again to speak the name (or to hear it) of a son or daughter (or family member) who died. It's as if they never existed. This is often interpreted as anger towards the person who died. Yet in my experience, it was mostly such deep sorrow that it was the only way that the father knew how to deal with it -- which is a very different motive, although it might look much the same.