Important week in my family: my ex-wife's husband died suddenly. This means my children's step-father passed away. Huge impact on them…all of them. Michael was the first person on my generation in the family to die. Mortality hit with a crash on the adult children. Everybody knows about death… but it isn't real until somebody you depend on to be there suddenly is not!
Pressure on the kids in other ways as well. Joan will need extra support, she'll have many needs that suddenly emerge, and there will be no one else to help but…her children. Heavy time for them, one in particular.
The whole thing gave me pause as well. I knew Michael would die soon, but not this soon. He died in his sleep; great shock for his wife to wake up and find that she was lying next to a corpse, the remains of someone she cared about deeply. The shock would take a long time to dissipate.
I pondered a good while on how I "should" feel. Not exactly sad… he wasn't that close to me. Suddenly anxious for my children and what this would mean for them. Wanting to talk to them and realizing that this wasn't "my" time. They needed their space to grieve without the imposition of another parent asking, or telling, them. It was interesting to me that one of my children called me almost the next day, for no reason, except just to reassure herself that at least one Dad was still alive.
In the wake of this death, I found myself reassessing my own body. Where did I hurt? what did that mean? Was I OK? Would I keep living for awhile? And I wondered, who would be next? There are four of us left, all from families that are notoriously long-lived. So…it's a crapshoot!
I wait until the weekend, when the funeral will be over, and the children will begin to return to life that is "normal," so to speak. I'm sure I'll hear from at least one of them, perhaps two. And life will begin again for them, with that one sobering note: who will die next? And when will that happen?
Pressure on the kids in other ways as well. Joan will need extra support, she'll have many needs that suddenly emerge, and there will be no one else to help but…her children. Heavy time for them, one in particular.
The whole thing gave me pause as well. I knew Michael would die soon, but not this soon. He died in his sleep; great shock for his wife to wake up and find that she was lying next to a corpse, the remains of someone she cared about deeply. The shock would take a long time to dissipate.
I pondered a good while on how I "should" feel. Not exactly sad… he wasn't that close to me. Suddenly anxious for my children and what this would mean for them. Wanting to talk to them and realizing that this wasn't "my" time. They needed their space to grieve without the imposition of another parent asking, or telling, them. It was interesting to me that one of my children called me almost the next day, for no reason, except just to reassure herself that at least one Dad was still alive.
In the wake of this death, I found myself reassessing my own body. Where did I hurt? what did that mean? Was I OK? Would I keep living for awhile? And I wondered, who would be next? There are four of us left, all from families that are notoriously long-lived. So…it's a crapshoot!
I wait until the weekend, when the funeral will be over, and the children will begin to return to life that is "normal," so to speak. I'm sure I'll hear from at least one of them, perhaps two. And life will begin again for them, with that one sobering note: who will die next? And when will that happen?
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