parenting children through grief
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Parenting through Grief: Insights from Widowed Solo Moms

ByMelissa Pierce

We can all agree that parenting brings with it emotional struggles, self-doubt, and overwhelming responsibilities. But parenting through grief is on a whole other level.

In this episode, we go straight to the intersection of grief and parenthood after your spouse and your child’s parent dies, shedding light on the challenges and triumphs that come with such a profound life-altering experience.

Key topics in this episode:

  • Different ways children cope with loss
  • The importance of advocating for your children
  • How guilt and self-doubt often accompanies parenting in the wake of loss

Join us as we talk about our fears of emotionally scarring our kids and feeling inadequate as solo moms.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed as a parent, you’ll find solidarity and comfort in our honest dialogue and uncover lessons of hope and courage along the way.

Listen to the Full Episode

Links + Resources From This Episode

“I don’t know what’s more exhausting about parenting: the getting up early, or acting like you know what you’re doing.”

Jim Gaffigan

Episode Transcript

Kim: Hello to our incredible widow squad podcast listeners. It’s Kim Murray here, and I’m joined by my ever-insightful co-hosts Melissa Pierce and Jen Zwink.

Life as a widow is a difficult experience on its own, but when you have kids looking up to you, it’s a whole different challenge. Trust us. We know the weight of helping our kids process such a heartbreaking loss.

So today, we’re focusing on guiding kids through the loss of a parent.

Jen, let’s start with you.

What’s your experience been in this incredibly difficult realm?

Navigating the Complexities of Grief and Parenting

Jen: This was my biggest struggle with everything that I went through, my biggest struggle was navigating everything with Claire and the pressure of that.

So, in the first week after Brent died, I was in such a tailspin and such shock because he was killed so suddenly and so violently. I didn’t say anything to Claire for the first few days because she was only two. She was two years and nine months. She was speaking a few words. She understood that daddy wasn’t in the house, you know, but their concept of time, of course, is off.

I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, So, I said nothing because I wanted to get some guidance on what to say before I screwed it up even worse than what was happening. And my thought from day one was, I’m gonna screw this up. Whatever I say, whatever I do, I’m gonna make it worse. I was just in a tailspin. I knew I could not tell her the whole truth. I knew that part of it. And it was probably, like, the third day when a really good friend of mine had gotten in touch with the children’s hospital in New Orleans. She found out that there was this service that was offered to grieving parents. You could talk to a bereavement specialist about how to work with children and loss.I didn’t know that these things existed. For everyone listening, a good resource is a children’s hospital.

So, my friend set up this appointment for me to go and speak to this woman, which was amazing because, again, even if I had known that was a resource, I don’t know if I would have had the capacity to call and actually make an appointment on day four to go and speak to someone.

My friend set everything up for me, drove me there, and went with me to that appointment. I remember sitting there and this woman was telling me that for a child that is so young, you can only say so much. There’s a certain way to talk to a child because they don’t process grief. They don’t process what’s happening. She said, “say what you can say in a short period of time and then you’re going to have to just revisit it as things come up.”

So, I did. I had a lot of support. I called my parents. This woman gave me some pamphlets, she gave me some paperwork. Again, I probably misplaced it. I don’t even know where that went, but I do remember her saying, you know, “just bring it all down to her level, however that looks like for you.” That was the hardest conversation I have ever had in my life. The hardest conversation.

I had so much anxiety planning it, trying to sit down with her. What was this gonna look like? What was I gonna say? I knew I had to kind of keep myself composed. I couldn’t break down and just lose it. So, we had this plan. My parents came over, we sat down with Claire at the kitchen table, and I had some paper, just blank sheets of paper and some crayons so that I could talk to her about it or just kind of draw out my explanation, as best as I could, of what had happened. I was trying to explain what is heaven to a 2-year-old. How do you do that? How do you do that? I still don’t know. I did it. I probably did it the wrong way. I don’t know.

Kim: There’s no right or wrong way. Do what you can.

Jen: How the eff do I do this? I drew a picture. It was a picture of the three of us. I drew clouds in the sky. I said, “daddy was here with us and now he’s in heaven.” It was so hard, and I was trying not to cry, and I kept it short, but that was the best way that I could explain it. It was a total out-of-body experience. It was like the words were coming out of my mouth, but my body wasn’t even there. It was horrific.

It was traumatizing in so many ways. And Claire just looked at me and she said, “okay, mommy, Can I have more candy?” Then she ran off into the other room, smiling. And I’m just looking around, like, what just what just happened?

The thing that I have learned with kids, especially being that little, that’s just how they deal with things. That’s how they deal with the big, big things. They can’t process it. They don’t fully understand it. They don’t know how to express themselves.

That’s why art is really important. Claire still sees a counselor. They do a lot of art therapy because it’s a way for them to get their feelings out, because they don’t have the words for it. She would come with things, you know, randomly out of nowhere. That’s the other thing with kids. It’s not like they’re gonna come and sit down and say, “mom, I want to talk to you.” You know, we would be playing at the park, having a wonderful time, smiling, laughing. She would come up to me and say, “I’m miss daddy.”

And you’re just, like, stabbed in the heart. You know? I don’t know what you call them. Grief land mines?

Melissa: Grief grenades.

Jen: That was a killer for me. It would literally, like, just take my breath away, and I would have to stop playing.

I would say, “I miss daddy too,” and try not to cry at the park. Because she’s bringing it up, I can’t say, “let’s talk about this when we get home.” It doesn’t work that way. So, you’re just in the moment with the little ones.

I remember signing her up for skating lessons. I remember I was driving her to skating lessons, and she said something about missing her dad. And she gets in there and she had this great, amazing, wonderful time at practice, but it was out of nowhere. And that’s one of the most difficult parts of navigating everything with kids is that their thoughts come when they come. You can’t really ignore it. I mean, you can’t. If they’re expressing it, have that conversation. It’s just gut wrenching. It is. Every time it would rip my heart out. I would have to say it again, “You know, he wishes he could be here. He’s not here, but he really wishes that he could be here, baby.” Like, just over and over. It’s so hard to take. It’s so hard to talk about. But, I mean, you have to do it. You have to do the hard things. I was worried. I was just ridden with worry every day about Claire since day one.

I worried about her constantly. I kept thinking, like, how is this gonna affect her? How bad is this gonna mess her up? How bad am I gonna mess this up? I’m trying my hardest to be mommy and daddy and I’m overcompensating here. I’m not doing enough over here. It’s just the worry that I had. Doubting myself as a parent and doubting my capabilities and what I was doing and that I could never I was never gonna be enough.

That’s the story that I kept telling myself is that I was never gonna be enough. I wasn’t capable of handling everything, so that negativity toward myself overtook me almost every day. I don’t know if other moms feel that way.

Kim: Every mom.

Melissa: And we are going to do damage. I mean, I think every parent, regardless of whether they are dealing with the loss of their spouse or not, is gonna screw up.

How did you move through that? How did you get to a place where you’re like, yeah, I am capable?

Jen: Okay. I have a story. I wasn’t going to talk about this, but you just asked me, so I’m talking.

I was folding laundry one day, and I was watching The Ellen Show. Claire was at school. This is probably, like, a year and a half, maybe after, after Brent passed away.

So, I’m watching The Ellen Show, and she was interviewing somebody. I think it was Joy Bryant. I don’t know if you guys know who that is. She’s an actress. She was talking about her life growing up and she was talking about how she was raised by her grandmother. She made a comment, and she said, “I had my grandmother. My parents weren’t there for me.”

She said, “all it takes is one person to believe in you. All it takes is one person in your life to have your back and to support you and to be there for you.” I was like, so that’s it. That’s me.

It was such a simple thing that she said. I was just like, oh my gosh. It takes one person. It does. One person to believe in you. What she said changed me. I started to feel like, you know what? I am enough. I am that one person.

I believe in her. She can grow up and have a wonderful life and I’m gonna make that happen. And it was this major turning point for me just hearing somebody else say that. I’m so glad that I had on The Ellen Show that day, and I was doing laundry.

Melissa: Yeah. Because you’re not gonna say the perfect thing. You’re gonna say things like, God, I can’t believe that came out of my mouth. But you’re there. You’re the solid thing that they’re gonna bump up against, but you are there. You’re not going anywhere. As long as you can help it.

Jen: So, the other thing that I feel is really important is that I did not want to hide my emotions from Claire. I had my breakdown moments, God, like, every day. There were so many times when I would just start crying out of nowhere. She would say, “mommy, what’s wrong?” It was like we had the same conversation every day because every day I would cry and then she’s like, “mommy, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, I miss daddy. I just miss daddy. I’m just sad.”

Every day, we would have the same conversation. But every day, I would say, “I’m sad. I miss daddy.” And then I would just wipe my tears away, splash some water on my face, take some deep breaths, and I would sit there with her, and I would say, “okay. Why don’t we go for a walk? What do you think? Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go do something.”

So, I would show my sadness, but then I would show her I worked through it. I’m working through it. Now let’s go and let’s get on with life and have a life and enjoy life. She was seeing two sides to mommy. She sees my sadness, but then she also sees my strength because I am moving on. I’m getting up.

Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go do this. Let’s go cook some dinner. Let’s go bake some brownies. Whatever it is we’re doing, and we’re gonna do it together. But I can be sad, and I can do that in front of her. I think it’s really, really important that your kids see both sides of that. Because, yes, we’re gonna have our breakdown moments, but they also have to know that they can rely on you. They can depend on mom. She’s going to be okay.

Look, I just saw her do that. She was crying, and look, now she’s okay. And that example over and over and over again of picking yourself up and taking care of yourself and that you have that ability to take care of your child. They need that security, and they need to know that they can rely on you. I realized that very early on, so that was the message that I was doing pretty much every day.

Melissa: You’re modeling, okay, I’m gonna be sad and angry and have all these emotions, and I’m gonna process them and I can also be effective at living and taking care of you. So, she’s seeing that in her little eyes, and she’s you’re modeling that for her.

Jen: So that was my biggest takeaway when I look back on my experience is that you are enough. It only takes one person to believe in someone and then also to be that good example for your kids and show them show them the sadness and show them the strength.

Kim, what about you?

Advocating for Grieving Children

Kim: All good points. I want to make the point that we did not know how to be parents before we had kids. Okay? We did not know how. All the things we had to learn as new parents, it’s kind of the same principle. We don’t know how to raise grieving kids either. We didn’t know how to handle the babies, and we don’t know how to do these things, but we figure it out. We figure it out as we go along.

Yes, we’re going to mess up our children. That’s inevitable. So, all the negative bad talk in our brains about how we’re terrible parents isn’t true. But it’s also not true that we’re gonna raise exceptionally well-adjusted kids that have no issues. Because they just will, whether it’s the death of their parent or any other number of things that happen in your lifetime.

The one thing that I really decided early on was that I needed to be my children’s advocate. Sometimes we like to abdicate some of our responsibilities to other people when we’re widows, because it’s easier.

We think, the professionals know what they’re doing. They can make the right decision. They know what’s best for my kid.

They don’t. You know what’s best for your kid. So, you need to advocate for your children.

And, of course, we all use professionals as, you know, co-whatever, to help us with some of the big decisions, especially when it comes to mental health. Like, you’re relying on therapists for those things. But not all the professionals know everything or have your kids’ best interests at heart.

So that’s my thing is just keep advocating for your own children.

My kids were in 3rd and 5th grade when Mark died. My youngest was in 3rd grade. And he’d always had some issues with focusing in school because he’s a dreamer. Okay? In second grade, he was dreaming about how he was gonna catch the Sasquatch in the forest behind the school. His second-grade teacher would say, “you know, he doesn’t pay attention in school,” and I’m like, “I know. He’s trying to catch the Sasquatch that’s in the forest.” Like, what part of this don’t you understand? Right?

I knew that about him. He had focus issues. Whatever. He’s little, and he’s a boy. So, Mark died when he was in third grade. And I went into parent-teacher conferences, and his third-grade teacher suggested that we get him tested for ADHD and put him on medication.

And I said, “no. I’m not putting him on medication.” But besides that, his dad just died. So, let’s just talk about that for a minute. But this third-grade teacher who had a PhD in education, by the way, he was a smart guy, was telling me that my third grader whose dad just died needed to go on ADHD medication.

No. He does not. He actually doesn’t. So, his concern was that he was not getting the best grades and whatever. And I said, “well, I’d rather have a C student who’s not on medication than an A student who’s on medication.”

The teacher kept telling me these kids that would take this medication were doing so much better, and we’re getting all A’s. I don’t care about the A’s. I don’t care about any of that!

He already had some focus issues, but then his dad died. So that was really disappointing to me that this is the best you can do for this kid?

I came across with our school district, at least, that there are zero resources available for children whose parents die. Zero. They do not know how to handle grief. They do not know what to do with this pain.

They may have counselors and social workers in the school district, but I know for me, my kids were not the neediest. They were not the ones who had the worst-case behavioral issues, and they weren’t the ones that were at the top of the other end of the spectrum either. They were the middle-of-the-road kids. So, they got lost in the shuffle. There were no resources available for them.

In high school, my older son got in all kinds of trouble, broke all kinds of rules. The high school basically thought he was a menace, and I guess, you know, technically, he kind of was a menace. But he was angry, and he was processing his anger about his father’s death in all kinds of really bad ways. Okay?

But the high school would just reprimand him or discipline him and send him home for suspension. They would suspend him and send him home to me. And I’m like, “that’s exactly what he wants.” He doesn’t want to be in school. So, you’re suspending him and sending him back home to me, but it was like, here mom. It’s your problem. You deal with it.

I’m not saying the school has to raise my child. I’m not saying that. But I did not have any resources or anything to help me. And I went to the teachers. I went to the counselors. I went to the principal. I went to the social workers. I’m asking all of these people for help to guide him because his dad died. But there were no resources available for us.

So, it was just disappointing again to me that a kid whose dad is gone and who’s in obvious, considerable pain, they have nothing for him.

I just kept trying. I would just talk to the teachers, and I would always say, “I’m not giving you an excuse as to why he’s not turning his work. I am not telling you I’m condoning that he’s late to your class every day, but his dad died. That is a piece of the puzzle.” That’s a piece of the puzzle that we all need to be aware of.

And they weren’t that concerned about it, to be honest with you. So, he had lots of detentions, lots of suspensions. He eventually got expelled. After all the times I was at the teachers and counselors and principal’s door saying, “we need to figure out how to help this kid.” They didn’t know what to do.

So, I have to be his advocate. I’m not condoning his behavior, but I’m also looking for ways to help him and whether it’s therapy or community resources or, you know, whatever that may be. But in that experience of him breaking all the rules, I also had to learn to hold my kids accountable. So even though they are in terrible, terrible pain, you still have to hold them accountable. They still have to have, you know, have their phones taken away, or they have to be grounded, or they have to be told they can’t go to this party or to somebody’s house even though you want to.

Melissa: Yeah. You want to give them a pass.

Kim: Yes. You want to give them the pass so badly. And honest to God, you guys, it’s easier to give them the pass.

Melissa: Right.

Kim: It’s easier like I said, to abdicate responsibility altogether because it is freaking hard work to shepherd your kids through their grief and when they’re breaking the rules, when they’re decimating your boundaries, to stay on top of that is incredibly hard.

But back to your point before, Jen, they look to us. We are modeling for them. They want to know that even if you’re disagreeing or even if you’re the parent that’s throwing down the gauntlet, that’s showing your kids that you obviously care for them and their well-being as well.

It’s not just I care for you in the good times. I care for you in the bad times. I’m showing you I care by holding you accountable and making you responsible for your actions. So, it’s okay to disappoint your kids. It’s okay. It’s not gonna be the worst thing in the world even though you want to give them all the things and let them, you know, not experience the pain. That’s not how life works. This was the hardest thing that they’ll probably ever have to go through, but it’s not the last time they’re gonna be disappointed or they’re gonna be hurt or things aren’t gonna go their way.

if we don’t teach them how to handle that just in regular life, then we’re not raising good, responsible adults. You know?

My older son decimated every boundary that I ever set for him, but I just kept going. I just kept holding him accountable. And at one point, I actually sent him to a boot camp. So, this was like a military style boot camp. It was a weekend long, 48-hour boot camp for troubled teens. He wasn’t listening to me, so I’m thinking, maybe you’ll listen to the retired military guy over at the boot camp.

Melissa: Maybe he’s tougher than mom is.

Kim: Yeah, maybe he’s a little tougher than I am.

So, they really get in the kids’ faces and make them do calisthenics and the whole nine yards. It’s a wonderful, wonderful program. But my son is a nonconformist, I have a nonconforming kid. He comes out of that experience, and he says, “you won’t break me.” And I said, “oh, kid, you’ve learned from the master. Okay? You are not going to break me, either.”

You have to be that adult who’s telling the child you cannot do these things. I feel bad for you. I’m sorry that you’re going through all this, but you still have to follow the rules, and you still have to be held accountable.

So, these are the things that I had to go through as I was grieving myself, but not allowing my kids to run roughshod over me because they’re in pain. I don’t want to make it sound like I didn’t listen to my kids or understand their pain. There was a therapist and a whole other side to that, but the point is that I do see a lot of parents and hear a lot of parents who just don’t want to deal with those things, and they kind of let them go.

And I’m just asking or recommending or suggesting that you don’t do that because they do eventually turn into wonderful, super productive, responsible, caring humans because that’s what I have now. Responsible, caring adult humans.

But we had to go through that really tough time of you don’t get to do all the things that you think you want to do just because you’re in pain.

I was hanging on by a very thin line, you guys, many times. So, as you’re listening, you may think, oh, she must be really tough. But I was near a nervous breakdown.

Melissa: And you’re doing it alone. You don’t know whether he would have had the same behavior behaviors and challenges with Mark. But you’re doing it without a partner by your side.

Kim: Yeah. Without a partner. So, it’s very hard. I mean, there were many times again where I was convinced I was emotionally scarring them. We all have our own thoughts and feelings in our brains. Right? Even if I was the best parent in the world and did everything right, my kids would still find a way to be upset about something because those are the thoughts they have in their head. The thoughts in my head were I’m a terrible parent or I’m emotionally scaring them further. How can I be so mean when they’re in so much grief?

But, again, life is what it is. We have rules. We have a civilized society for a reason, and you guys have to be civilized people in that society too. You don’t get to break the rules.

It’s hard to be consistent. Super, super, super hard to be consistent. There were many times when I wanted to abdicate my responsibility and just say, “oh, therapist over there, can you fix this for me?” Or, “principal over there, you handle it.”

But you can’t do that because they are looking up to you. And when you’re consistent, again, another life lesson is that you have to toe the line. You know? You have to do what’s right whether you want to or not or whether you agree with me or not.

So those are some of the things that don’t sound like they’re ways to help their behavior or to emotionally help them through their grief, but they actually are because you can’t just give them everything.

Jen: No. I know. You can’t.

Melissa: Yeah. You want to.

Jen: You want to so badly, but you can’t.

Kim: The other thing that’s helpful is getting your kids involved in situations where they can be with other kids who are going through similar experiences, like joining a grief support group or a grief art program.

I sent my kids to Camp Kesem every summer. The summer after Mark died, I signed them up. And this is a camp for kids whose parents have or have had cancer. So, Mark had cancer, and I signed them up for this camp.

There were kids in the group whose parents were currently going through cancer, kids whose parents had cancer and were in recovery, and kids whose parents died from cancer. So, I had to make sure that they were with the kids whose parents died from cancer because they were also going to be around children whose parents didn’t die.

I remember a couple times they came home and were like, “well, so and so in my cabin, you know, their dad had blah blah, but he didn’t die.” I’m like, “yeah. I’m sorry. That’s a different kind of cancer.” But they were able to meet children like them. In the grief support group that we went to after Mark died, they met kids like them. At Camp Kesem they met kids like them.

So, it’s just like we talk about as adults. You know? We need people in our lives who understand what we’re going through as widows, and the kids need people in their lives who understand what they’re going through as children who have lost a parent.

There are lots of camps. There are lots of options. There is lots of grief support for kids, so I would recommend finding something like that. Camp Kesem’s in almost every state, if not every state, because they go by universities. You can look through your local universities and see if they have a chapter, but it’s campkesem.com. That’s, K-e-s-e-m, Camp Kesem.

Melissa: Jenny Lisk, The Widowed Parent podcast, we’ve had her on here before, she’s got a good guide to all the camps and all the different support groups that are available. And I talk about the Dougy Center all the time.

Kim: Whatever the resource is that we can get out for these widows to know about is fantastic because we didn’t know this when we were first widowed. We didn’t know that these resources were available. Getting your kids involved in anything like that is hugely beneficial.

So, Melissa, what about you? What were your experiences?

Parenting Children Steeped in Loss

Melissa: Oh gosh. I had a different experience because my kids’ lives were just steeped in loss. When Dave and I adopted them through foster care, their birth dad had already died. My youngest doesn’t remember. He was maybe two or three when their birth dad died, and my oldest kinda sorta remembers. But, you know, developmentally, wherever they’re at, age wise, is how they process. When we adopted them, we were mandated to do family therapy and grief counseling just for us to understand their experience. So, a lot of art therapy. Like you said, there was a lot of drawing and there were a lot of challenges there that we worked through.

That whole family grief therapy model, we were kind of immersed in from time to time. We didn’t go all the time, but as we needed it, we knew this resource was available to us. And then when Dave died, Bryce was in fifth grade. My oldest was in eighth grade, and I didn’t know what was out there. I mean, Dave was an educator, and so they had grief counselors there at the school set up for that week or so after he died. And then I was, again, just Googling. I’m just trying to find out how to talk to my kids about this.

It was just such a shock, I think. And then them having another dad die. In my mind, I was like, how does this happen? Like, I thought we had the golden ticket. Like, all these bad things happened to our kids, but then once we adopted them, the heavens open up and life’s amazing.

Well, that is not the reality. So, I was really angry and thought it was very unfair because Dave and I started this journey together.

We had to have training. We had to get FBI checked. It was really good parent training for us. We had to talk to each other and journal and share our stories and figure out how we were going to parent our kids even before we got our kids. Because the state wanted to know if we were going to be decent parents. So, we did kind of have training and stuff. I thought, well, Dave and I embarked on this journey together, and then I’m doing it by myself? That’s not the deal.

Kim: There’s no training on when the spouse dies.

Melissa: Yeah. That is not the deal we made.

My kids were pretty chill for a year. I think all of us were probably just processing the shock. And then, Kim, maybe this was your situation too is when they hit puberty…

Kim: Oh, yeah. All bets are off.

Melissa: Hormones, all that stuff. That’s when things really came to a head. And around that time, I was taking them to the Dougy Center here in Portland. They had this group set up where the kids would go off and do their play therapy. Then the parents would go to another room, and they would have their own kind of support group. And my kids did that a few times, and then they were just like, “this is dumb. We don’t want to do this.”

And I kept trying to push it. Like, “oh, no. I think this is gonna fix us.”

In my mind, this is gonna help, and they’re like, “no, we don’t really like doing it, and all we do is play ping-pong.” And so, I’m like, okay. I’m gonna have to let them set the tone. I mean, they’re expressing to me they don’t want to do this. I can’t force it on them. So there was that.

And then I had my therapistexpelled, my grief counselor, and she suggested getting them into counseling. And I tried that, but they’re not talkers. They’re not gonna say how they’re feeling. They don’t know what they’re feeling. You know? They’re just not gonna about it. Talk therapy is not their jam.

So, we tried that, and then, yeah, puberty hit. For my oldest, it hit hard. He was angry, and all that was coming out at school. And we had a really great school situation. They knew exactly what was going on. It was a smaller school, and they gave him a lot of leeway where they probably wouldn’t have given that to any other student.

But it came to a head where they’re like, “we can’t keep letting this go because it sets the tone for the other students, and they can see what’s happening.” So, he got expelled. You know, I’m trying to deal with all my stuff. Like, I’m a bad parent. I wish I could say the perfect thing. Trying to fix it and I can’t fix it.

I also knew too that he cannot go into adulthood with these behaviors.

Kim: No.

Melissa: Like, this will not serve him in any way, shape, or form. And I was that cement post, that pillar that he could just keep bumping up against and, I’m like, nope. Nope. You’re not gonna break me. I’m always gonna be here.

I created a lot of boundaries and a lot of consequences and stuff. But stuff just wasn’t working very well, and it was really ramping up and escalating to the point where it got kind of scary. And so, I enlisted professionals. It wasn’t like, “here, you fix this.” It was like, give me the information, assess our situation. I will take that, and I will disseminate and figure out how I’m gonna get the best care for my kid.

I made the decision to send him away from the home to get the help that he needed. You know, he’s 26 now, and he graduated college. He put himself through college, literally, got a scholarship, all that, and he’s living his self-sufficient life. But if I hadn’t done that? It was super scary. I didn’t know anybody moving through this. I eventually found a support group of other parents who were moving through this. But it was very lonely. I’m like, I am not gonna let this kid go down the drain. That is not the deal that Dave and I made up, and that’s not who I am.

So, at that point, I was just so laser-focused with advocating for him, getting him what I thought he needed, and taking a lot of chances. I think this all kind of stems from that abandonment. Our husbands didn’t make the choice to leave this world, but they did. And there’s this sense of abandonment, and I think I have it. My kids have it. You know, that’s just the byproduct of this experience. I can’t fix it for them.

But I can expose them to the tools and the resources out there. So, the Dougy Center was really great for that. Just kind of starting me on the path and then just trusting myself, and let’s find the right people asking for help. Like, finding the right consultants, the right educators, the right therapist, and trusting my gut. If it didn’t feel right, I was like, nope. Sorry. We’re not seeing you again.

Kim: You get to change your mind. You get to refocus and move on to somebody else.

Melissa: It was very drastic, the things that I did. I think some people didn’t really agree with what I was doing, but nobody was in my shoes.

Jen: Nobody’s in your house.

Melissa: Yeah. Nobody’s in my house. I am the head of the family now. And I talk about my oldest kid a lot because it was very challenging. Then I had my youngest, who was just trying to please and keep the peace and so there’s that. You know? Like, I’m spending so much energy on just trying to navigate and help him, and then I have this other child who is not getting enough attention, but it’s like, this is my situation. I’m trying to handle it as best as I can, trying to get the support that I can, and always talking about Dave. That was the thing.

Whenever a story would come up or we’d we would have a memory or talk about a memory, my oldest would leave the room. I just thought, I don’t know how healthy that is. He had the feelings inside. He had all the memories inside. He just was like a Pandora’s box.

Kim: Does he talk about it now?

Melissa: Somewhat. What I thought was really cool was on his 18th birthday he got a tattoo of the date that Dave died. So, it’s like that was profound. That was the life changing, altering experience because we did kind of have this idyllic little life. Everything was those two kids. Everything. Because we were close to 40 when we when we adopted them.

So, we were like, we’ve lived our lives. You know? Let’s pour everything we can into these kids. Every decision we made about them was top of our mind, and then Dave dies. You know, the world just blows up. I don’t know why. I think it’s really unfair that they have so much loss in their life from the get go, from birth, basically.

I don’t know. I just trusted that there was help out there. There’s great support. There are camps, the Dougy Center. There are all kinds of places out there. If one doesn’t feel right or if your kids are like, “yeah, I don’t think I like this, or I don’t want to do this,” you have to listen to them. You know? They set the tone.

We had rituals. And even though my oldest didn’t want to talk about it, we had a shelf with pictures and rocks and things of Dave, and it was always there in the kitchen. I’m remarried. I have a picture of me, Dave, and us two kids, a framed picture in the hallway wall. You know? So, it’s there. His presence is there.

Whether he wanted to talk about him or not, I always talked about it, or my youngest would talk about it, or family members would say, “remember when Dave did that?” Just don’t not talk about him.

Kim: My oldest was the same. He would walk out of the room as well. We would look at pictures or watch videos, and he would leave. And it really concerned me for a very long time. This is, like, years’ worth of not even really saying his dad’s name, and it concerned me, but he’s not like that now. He’s 20 years old now, so we can have conversations.

He came to it of his own accord. Right? So, at the time that was right for him, he began to have those conversations and explore that a little bit more. It’s hard when you’re standing by watching it because you want to shake them and say, “you can’t do this. This is not healthy. You shouldn’t do this.”

But, again, we’re women raising boys. It’s a little bit different because we think differently, men and women. Mars and Venus. Right? Allow them to have that opportunity to come to it in their own time because eventually they will. You just you just have to trust the process.

Meliss: Yeah. He will talk about him. Not a lot. He lives in Nebraska, and I went to his apartment, and he had pictures and mementos and things in his bedroom. And so, you know, I know he feels it. He’s just not a talker.

Kim: We went through the same thing. My son would do things I didn’t know he was doing. So they’re processing it in their own way. You don’t even know it half the time. Unless you stumble upon it.

Melissa: There’s stuff that they’re processing. Like, this is this is lifelong. You know? It is a lifelong process. Tough stuff. I mean, whether your kids are young or older it’s just something that is always gonna be a part of you.

Wrap Up

Melissa: And with that we come to the end of another episode.

Guiding our kids through loss is uncharted territory for many of us. But remember, trust your inner wisdom, get help when you need it, and try to keep that line of communication open.

So, take care of yourself and your family, and leave us a review or let us know your thoughts. Until next time, keep finding those moments of connection and love.

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