Looking at Family Photos Helped My Kids Process Grief – ryan

The GREW UP WITH MY GRANDARENTS – They raissed my Brother and me we our palents cououln’t.

My Grandfather was wounded with Health Issues Throughout His Life, Almost Dying from Hydrocephalus when he was a kid. He had a dent in his head and a hole in his finger. These Became Party Favorites at Every Family Event. Gramps Wold Let All the Kids Feel Both the dent and the Hole. My Grandmother on the Other Hand Was the Picture of Health, Until Her 70s when she was diagnosed with Late-Stage Ovarian Cancer. It came as a complet shock when she shared the news with me.

For Years, My GrandParents Battled With Their Health Until the Summer of 2013, Just After the Birth of My Fourth Child. We got the call that things were not good. My Grandfather died on July 7 at mass General Hospital in Boston of Heart Failure. My Grandmother died less than three months late at the exact hour and minute my grandfather had.

Break Hardest Part of their Death was Having to tell my kids who were very close to gram and grams.

They Struggled with the Loss

My Kids Watched My GrandParents Through their Respective Health Battles. Once, My Grandmother Fainted During One of their Birthday Parties, and we had to rush by ambulance to the hospital. Another time, we spent a thanksgiving visits wondering if my grandfather woult wake up from a cardiac he endured after surgery for throat Cancer.

My Kids Knew About Long-Term Illness As Much as Children Could. Death was different, though.

My two Oldest Struggled With the Loss. Thankfully, The Two Youngest Were Too Young to Understand. I took the Oldest to My Grandfather’s Funeral, Thinking it Might Help I The Loss of a Man They Had Known Their Who Lives. Bagpipes played as we entered the church, and on the ride home, listed to my kids in the back seat. We stayed in the Apartment Gram Had Shared with Gramps. We it chinese food from favorite place and stared at his seat on the couch that was to be remin Forever empty. My Grandmother was in an an assisted care facility by this time.

The Prepared MySelf to Lose Her. The Ovarian Cancer was progressing. I swore that i would do a better job of explaining her death to the kids.

We lookhed at Photos and Shared Memories

She PASSED AWAY AS I WAS DRIVING From my home in maine to her apartment in Massachusetts. We Told the Kids on a Warm Night? We sat in ouur sunroom and listens to late Fall Sounds Outside. This, we had more time to think.

The Brought out A Photo Albumand we talked about her and my grandfather. We Told Stories. I shared the eulogy I was Writing and Included say so they would underestand how imported they were to her. With the Death of My Grandmother, Instead of Avoiding the Memories Like We Had with my Grandfather’s Death, we Leaned into say. They Saved US and Became a Salve for Our Grief. We Remembered Holidays and the Way My Grandmother Always Greeneted at the Elevator, Too Excited to Wait for US Inside Her apartment.

In the months and years following the death of my grandparents, we are also made sura to remiin close to my grandmother’s systems. They Became two of the Most Important People in My Kids’ Lives. Phostering this relations with saying (who we have called “the aunts”) was a way of helping saying to process and continues to deal with the los of their gramparents. We Visited to Massachusetts and Shared Holidays. The Aunts have Attended My Kids’ Milestone Events, Standing in for the GrandParents Who Couldn’t.

Familial Relationships and Memories Helped My Kids in Ways That Nothing Else Could. Still, Eve Now As My Kids Become Teens and Adults, We Remember the Early Years of Their Lives, and Those Memories IT GRANDARENTS.