Am I letting my kids down?

Hi 1978SB

Welcome to the community.  I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your wife.

It's very hard to know what to say and when to children regarding bereavement.  Many find it difficult to talk to adults about their emotions and yours are also teenagers making it even harder.  However, you are talking to them and encouraging them to talk.  Your emotions are perfectly normal - eventually you will come to recognise triggers and learn coping strategies for these.

Talk to your wife and encourage the kids to talk to her whenever and wherever you all want to.  She will always be around you and will try to guide and support you as best she can.  Even little things such as mentioning the weather when you come back into the house.  Visit one of her favourite places alone or as a family and talk to her there.  Ask her to guide you through your bereavement and to help with the children.  She will send a sign to you to let you know she is there.  This could happen straight away or be a few days later.  You may find an unexpected white feather, radio / tv may retune to her favourite, you may find something belonging to her that appeared to be lost for years. You and the children have to open yourselves up to accept these signs and thank her for sending them.

A good way to express your emotions is writing everything down.  Either alone or as a family create a memory book about your wife including stories from all the time you've known her, stories she told you about her growing up, stories from other relatives / friends of hers and lots of photos.  During this there will be lots of tears but this will help you all long term rather than hiding your emotions.  Does the children's school have independent advisors who they could talk to?  Do you have someone in your work place (colleague or HR) that could be there to listen when you need them?  The bereavement support will be very good for you (I had support some years ago).  They can offer 1-2-1, group (restrictions permitting), walk and talk groups and bereavement cafes - all depending on your local area.

If you need to talk to someone, please contact the support line free on 0808 808 0000 which is open daily 8 am – 8 pm daily for a free confidential chat.  You can use this link your area to find support near where you live.  This could be 1-2-1 or group and is also free and confidential. 

Also, post as much as you want whenever you want here and someone will always respond to you.

There is some useful information on coping with grief and information on the symptoms of grief.

This link allows you to download the Macmillan book Coping with Bereavement which is full of useful information and has support contact details at the back.  This booklet about bereavement is free and can be downloaded as PDF or as an ebook.

This link takes you to a leaflet called In Memory which is very useful.

Lastly, here are some words which I hope will bring you some comfort -

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way you always used.

Put no difference into your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect, without the shadow of a ghost in it.

Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around

the corner .......

All is well.

Hope this helps and sending you a big hug and best wishes for your support.

Hi David,

Thank you for your reply and for the suggestions below. Many of these we are already trying/doing whilst others, like the memory book we will certainly try.

My daughter has taken up an offer from school to talk to one the support team, and they have their first session tomorrow. 

I do think (hope) the bereavement support will help, its not something I ever thought I would find myself needing but I am where I am and it feels like what I need. The opportunity to perhaps meet with groups of people with shared experiences may be useful too. Cancer impacts on so many peoples lives these days.

Thank you again David, I'll let you know how we get on.

Steve

I know. The woman I loved more than life itself, who had been my wife for 32 years, passed away from ovarian cancer two weeks ago. I'm trying to carry on working, but there's a great Kathy shaped space in my soul. 

The only thing that helps is that I know if she were here she'd be telling me to get on with life, to go out and enjoy something. That's what she would want. That's what I'll try to do.

That's all we can do.

Once we knew Helen was on borrowed time we did talk about what may happen after and I know how much she wanted the kids and I to live our lives.

It's evenings when it hits the most, finished work, kids are with friends or playing online, so this was always "our" time.

As you say, we have to stay strong and try and remember all the happy times. No-one can take away our memories!

Me too. Some evenings I can't face going in the bedroom. I've woken up in an armchair half a dozen times.

Hi 1978SB,

This is my first post in this section and I just wanted to say how very sorry I am. I’ve been reading the posts in here on and off since my lovely Mam passed away on 30th April. I found it so hard to cope initially and I wanted to read other’s experiences in the hope of finding a better way to deal with it. I now know that every situation is different and everyone deals with things differently and unfortunately a rule book doesn’t exist.

I have 2 children myself and your post struck a chord with me even though we are in different circumstances. I find the evenings the hardest too when the kids are in bed and it’s just me and my thoughts. If I think too much I will cry for the night or sometimes to make it easier I distract myself by scrolling through social media not even taking in what I’m looking at. What I have realised is that I need to have the crying episodes and once I give in to them they are like a release. Another thing that has greatly helped me is going for long walks when the kids are in school and being able to think and process my thoughts uninterrupted. It’s not easy. I really hope that your counselling helps and it’s great that your daughter is doing it too. It will probably be easier for her initially to talk to someone outside of your family unit. It’s such a hard situation for you to be in dealing with your own grief and having to also think of theirs.

1. Let us know how you’re getting on x