If you have to imagine it then this is concern trolling.

i don't understand what you're getting at? that's the definition of empathy:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sympathy-empat...

the implication is that even though i haven't had my mother murdered i can simulate the experience and thereby relate (to an extent) to someone that has and make decisions with those insights in mind.

Edit: I just realized that what you probably meant is that if it's never happened to me then I can't genuinely be concerned. I didn't even know that that was something people believed. Interesting. Why would anyone pretend to be concerned for someone else's wellbeing?

I'm posting from a throwaway. What is the incentive for me to signal anything?

Makes no sense - signals have to have objects. If I wanted to feel better than others I just would

Ah... "virtue signaling". What the sociopaths among us have branded empathy they cannot feel or understand in others. Just because it is not an emotion you have, does not mean it is not real for others.

Is concern trolling newspeak for expressing empathy?