DanyGreen

Hi - It has been just over 5 months since I lost my husband suddenly. At first, there were so many things to take care of - his final arrangements, making sure my kids and I were okay financially, everything around the house seemed to break, etc. - that I just put my head down and took care of what needed to be taken care of. We had so much support from our family, friends and community, I truly felt that we were so blessed it was almost to good to be true. About a month ago, we started to feel the first bits of settling and some peace and then the most bewildering things started to happen. A neighbor who we have know for years reports my dogs to Animal Control for barking, my son's best friend's parents accuse me of allowing "gateway" behaviors to occur in my home, and in general people began to shun my kids and I at community events - openly and with some hostility. Animal Control told me not to worry about the neighbor - she is just being a nuisance. I don't allow drugs or alcohol in my home just because we are grieving. We go to community events to enjoy ourselves and do not go out of our way to shine a light on our situation. We are trying to move on....so why does it feel like there are people out there in the world who want to keep us down and "in our place" of grief and feeling alone? I never expected to see such ugliness in people because my husband died.

It has been a little over five weeks since I lost my husband to complications from undiagnosed Esophageal cancer. His passing was sudden and for the five days while he was on life support very traumatic for myself and our two children, a son who is 16 and a daughter who is 10. My daughter has shown an extreme amount of resiliency but my son is having difficulty re engaging with his life - school, friends and athletics. Everyday I wake up and think that today is the day that he will have a "normal" day and go to all his classes and activities, but I am disappointed everyday because that doesn't happen. There is always some twist that causes the day to derail. Our grief counselor is watching closely but am I expecting too much from him? Am I putting too much pressure on the three of us? We are told to get back to a routine but grief is standing in the way. I am so fearful that my son will become a negative statistic to his father's death. What have any of you experienced?