I was at Bristol Temple Meads and a five-hour train journey lay ahead. A party of young people boarded and a girl headed straight for my dog collar. "Can I talk to you, Reverend?" It had all the hallmarks of a "chat up the vicar" joke and I was tired. But no. Three hours earlier her boyfriend, a long-term depressive, had intentionally taken a lethal dose of tablets and she had discovered him dead in their flat. He could no longer face the pain of his existence and she was travelling to her parents for comfort.

Her anguish poured out and the familiar, desperate thoughts surrounding a suicide were aired. I had heard them all during a lifetime of parish work. First came anger at a God who stands idly by while a young man destroys himself, or even worse, engineers his death for some arcane reason that defies comprehension. What had she done to deserve this?

Was it a punishment? A testing? The miles flew by and gradually her God-directed rage turned inwards. She attacked herself as mercilessly as a self-harmer, refusing to allow any extenuating circumstances. "I wasn't sympathetic enough." "I failed him." "I feel so guilty."

At last the accusing finger turned in the direction I had been expecting – to her deceased lover. Didn't he think about the deprivation she would feel before upending that bottle of pills? It was a cowardly opt-out. And what about the shame, the whispered comments of the mourners, the stigma of suicide? I listened and said nothing, for the wound had to be drained, the anger allowed to dissipate before healing could begin.

There were practical reasons for my silence. It was hardly the time to point out that her conception of God was questionable. A deity such as she imagined, who dished out punishments, rewards, death, life and tragedy with tyrannical arbitrariness, was in dire need of theological reshaping.

Nor did it seem appropriate to plunge headlong into heavyweight ethics. To inform her that life is a gift of God and that her man was ingrate and wicked to spurn it would bring no comfort. To take the opposite stance and point out that her lover had freely elected to die and had every right to exercise that choice would only fuel her sense of betrayal.

As for the guilt that overwhelmed her, a few trite words from a parson would not assuage it, nor indeed would a hurried, priestly absolution. Only self-acceptance could do that.

So I encouraged her to talk about life with her boyfriend. She told me of the agonised nights they spent battling with the darkness of his depression. Interwoven with that were the joys of love and the memories of holidays spent in Greece and the excitement of turning the key for the first time in their newly rented flat. I learned of his magic touch with watercolour painting and his tenderness towards her. She talked and wept and wove her tale till journey's end.

We left the train at Darlington and I offered to take her home. She refused and shook my hand, intimating that I should leave. I understood, for a grief as deep as hers needs its times of stillness, especially after an unburdening. "Thank you for all your help."

I watched her walk away feeling profoundly inadequate. Ironically I had done nothing to help her. She had done that herself by painting a picture of the man she loved, brush stroke by brush stroke. Nobody could take that away from her.