Sultan: What not to say when someone is grieving

Aisha Sultan | Post-Dispatch

Columnist and features writer

Sobia Shahab of Ballwin lost her husband of nearly 24 years unexpectedly this summer when he suffered organ failure after a sudden illness.

Shahab, in the haze of shock and grief, decided to sell one of the family’s cars to save on expenses. About a week after Omar died, she took their Nissan Armada to a local Bommarito dealership in Hazelwood where the couple had previously purchased four vehicles.

The dealership accepted the car and wrote a bill of sale.

However, the DMV made a clerical error with the vehicle’s VIN, which created confusion at the dealership about whether the taxes had been paid on the car. The salesman, with whom the family had done repeated business and who knew the circumstances around the returned car, se