How do you deal with your own grief and still take care of the kids' needs?!?!?

[chiromommy]

We have lost my grandfather, mother, and great grandmother in the last 3 months. It was expected with my grandfather (he had been sick) and my great grandmother (she was 99 years old), but my mother was 50 and died very suddenly of a hemorrhagic stroke (like an aneurysm). We saw my mom almost every day and we were all very close to her. My girls are doing okay, but the delayed reaction in my children is now starting to hit. My youngest (2) is very nervous about people getting sick and about traveling (we were out of town the day my mother died). I am having a really hard time dealing with their reaction while I break down in tears so many times a day. The grief is so overwhelming. I know they miss the old me and are grieving for Nana as well. It has been a month since she died and I have not felt it get easier. I have a hard time taking care of the simplest needs right now. My temper is short. Counseling is not really an option for me - I need to just work through the grief and depression - but how do you take care of your children's needs in the meantime?

[lisamarie]

I am so sorry for all your losses.((()))) I remember when my 1st dh past away, one thing that helped me a bit was exercise. It took my mind off of things, it got some of my frustrations out and it helped keep me healthy. It can be so hard sometimes to be a parent, let alone a grieving parent. Talk to your girls about your emotions and why you are acting the way you are. My Mother has a terminal illness and we are also very close to her. For the past week, things have been difficult and I have been in tears almost daily. I just really try to talk to my ds about this.

My dd is just waking, but hugs to you.

Warmly~

Lisa:bf

[applejuice]

I took my DS3, my only one still at home, to four brief counseling sessions last summer to make sure he was all right.

He was all right. I guess I already knew that, but I needed an outside source to reaffirm it. I went also.

My DS3 said he had already resigned himself to the FACT that Poppy was very sick and was going to die. DS said that he was worried about me.

I assured him that we would be a team when Poppy died. I did not make him do anything that I did not feel he could handle emotionally, as I took my oldest DS to make the funeral arrangements and I took my DS2 to design the gravemarker. DS3 came with me to pick a dog for us. DH hated the idea of pets, but we needed "someone" to be with us and keep us company...we got a male fixed German Shepherd six years old...we adopted each other.

Anyway, we do go to group therapy sessions each week. DS3 does not like these, but I find them helpful, to know that we are not the only people in the world who have lost a loved one. Mostly, through the group, I learned that I need to keep things the way they were so there would be a continuity of life...I could only do this in a limited sense. DH and I homeschooled DS3, now age 12, and day after his burial, school started for me and then school started for DS3 a week later. DH and I had already enrolled him in the school I am a teacher in and DH had seen him go off to summer school to ease the transition.

DS3 was instantly popular and did well. It is a very small school PK-8 with 350 students. He and I work as a team...he handles the long day well and enjoys being with me. I am alone in raising a teenage boy alone now...so sad, but I feel we have a good beginning.

My Father died three years before DH of the same thing. My boys have grieved alot. DS3's only regret is something I have no control over...my age...he has said that he wishes he had younger parents. He says I have no sense of style in clothes or music, but I think this would happen with any parent simply because they are older. He is also mad since he has no grandparents.

DS3 does have two older brothers who do have a sense of style in clothes and music. I never had an older brother, so I guess that you cannot have everything in life...

We are spending the summer doing improvements to the house that I discussed with DH before he died, so this is the continuity I have done with DS3...Life goes on.