coping with grief Archives - Forever In Mom Genes

What Is The Time Limit On Grief?

Nov 06 2014

The minute you think you’ve come to terms with loss, grief comes back—quietly sneaking up on you as a fleeting pang, or slamming into you like a visceral punch that forces the breath from your lungs, making you gasp amid sobs. My friend Heather said the other day in reference to the loss of her son that, “Grief has no time limit.” She and her family have been through it. They’re still going through it. They will always be in it to some degree. There may indeed be five stages of grief, but there’s definitely no fixed schedule or order to them. My husband’s mom passed away last February. She was more a friend than a mother in law and the close bond she shared with my children was uncommon, I think. My son was ten when she died. She wasn’t sick—her death was unexpected and a shock for everyone. Of course my boy was devastated when she died, but after a month or so, the cloud lifted for him and he claimed he had made peace with it and that he was okay. He later admitted he felt guilty for not crying anymore. “We all grieve in our own[…]

Jul 14 2014

My husband’s mum was a vital part of our lives. There hasn’t been a day since she died that we don’t miss her terribly. As adults who’ve had years to develop coping skills, it’s still tough. So how can a child possibly deal with grief when they can’t begin to reconcile the devastation of loss and moreover, the finality of death? Our eleven year old son experienced anxiety resulting from the loss of his grandmother, so we sought help. Grief counseling has helped him begin to accept the death and has given him skills to cope with the fear of losing his parents and sister. Avery, our seven year old, seems to be the most profoundly affected. She and her ‘Grandie’ had a special bond (one that my husband and I are convinced has continued in some other worldly way. It sounds odd, but the evidence we’ve seen is impossible to ignore). At first Avery believed her Grandie had gone to the dentist and would be coming back soon. We don’t know where this idea came from. Regardless, the first dental appointment I took the kids to afterwards was difficult to say the least. When it became evident that[…]

May 09 2014

My mother-in-law believed things happened in threes. If two great things happened, she’d look for the third and always seemed to find it. After two unfortunate events, she’d breath a sigh of relief when the third one finally occurred so we could relax. She truly believed in, and spoke often about the significance of the number three. Shortly after she passed away my son and I went for a walk after dinner. He was struggling to make sense of why his Grandie was taken away so suddenly. I told him about my friend Sandi who lost her father a few years ago. She told me to look for signs. Signs brought her and her family comfort. Sandi told me that her dad sent signs all the time and I shared some of her specific examples with my son. It had gotten dark and the streetlights had come on. As we cut through a parking lot on our way home, we walked under three lamp posts. As we passed, each one of the three lights flickered and went out. One, two, three in a row. Was it a sign? Was Grandie looking down on us, listening to our conversation, and[…]

Tag - coping with grief

What Is The Time Limit On Grief?

Grief-Helping Kids Cope

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