I'm so sorry. You'll never be the way you were, nor would you want to be; as you said, he was your true love, & he wouldn't want you to grieve & be miserable & not enjoy, relish, & revel in the life you still have on this earth with your/his children. You are a vibrant young mother with 2 dear children tethering you to this earth; your mission here is important & it won't be complete for many many years. Your precious sons are the next links in your beloved husband's chain of life, & you're the one who can nurture their connections to their roots, for their sakes & for the sakes of their children., Please take care of yourself, in every way. Eat right, don't drink, make sure you see people every day (isolation is an enemy). Grief is deep & dark, but depression is a physical malfunction that can be beaten. Get outside that house & get your heart pumping; oxygenated blood is the best medicine for...well, many things. I know you don't feel like jogging or playing tennis or swimming, because not wanting to do anything is a symptom of depression. Make yourself do it anyway. If you can't summon the strength, have someone call you every morning & tell you to get up & get dressed & get outside. I always managed to get up if I knew someone was on the way over to take me to jazzercise, etc, somebody who wouldn't be embarrassed to bang on the door & holler at me to get my @ss out there. & go to your doctor: this is the year 2014, & there are sophisticated medicines out there these days to help you. Enlist some help; go to your family, friends, neighbors, church family, people at work, people you meet in the grocery store (seriously, I've found that saying "what a beautiful hairdo!" or "is that the best peanut butter?" provides a tiny little spark of human contact that really helps you to keep putting one foot in front of the other). & this may sound off the wall, but do something for someone else: it lifts the spirits & affirms...something, I don't know what. I do know that researchers have discovered that giving makes people happier than getting, or as our grandmothers said, it really is 'more blessed to give than to receive'. I wish you the very best, including a long & satisfying life, filled with the memories whose pain will fade in time, leaving only a sweet joy.

I think their questions are perfectly normal..they are probably still putting together in their heads what a "family" is. I can totally relate to your situation having raised SD fulltime since a toddler and also eventually having biological children with DH..this is how I handled it and I think it has turned out well (she is now 11) first, I explained to her that families can come to be in many ways, some children live with both their biological parents and some dont and one is not less than the other, blood doesnt make you a family it is the time spent together, the loving and the taking care of one another that makes you a family. As far as questions go about when she was little and I wasnt around (and I got many, thats why I think your girls are right on target) it really depended on the question..if she asked was she a cute baby I repied "of course you were a beautiful baby, here lets go look at a picture of when you were a baby.." I also made an effort to learn as many stories about her when she was an infant, and about her birth for times when things like that came up..when she asked what time she was born I told her the time..when she asked if she cried a lot as a baby I started off with let me tell you a funny story grandma told me about when you were a baby and you cried.... I gues what I am trying to say is that I have always tried to answer all her questions that I can while still making sure that she knew she had a BM.....there was one I couldnt answer when my DD was born...she wanted to know if she was nursed like her little sister..I told her no and she asked why?.... i had no idea so i told her she would need to ask BM that question next time she saw her....there are some things you cant answer and thats ok too.... This will be a tough transition for them with a new baby coming...one thing that I told SD when our biological child was born and she was upset that she wasnt my biological child was that she was sooo very special because I didnt get to choose my biological children but I did get to choose to be her SM...and I chose to be her SM because I loved her so much....that was back when she was 6 and even to this day she will still pop up and declare proudly that her mama(she calls me mama and BM mom whole nother story..) got to choose her.....I think it made her feel special when she was feeling a bit left out..and i think it still makes her feel special...... another thing we did was stuck to the names everyone in our extended family already had whe nwe had biological children....I think it was awise choice because all three of kiddos call nana the same thing and no one is "different"

You know, we are all the products of everything that has gone on before us. We are all accidents of the momentary interminglings of all of our ancestors over thousands of years. We cannot change the past. Things are what they are. Or, were. Mysteries, even unpunished murders from a century ago, are over and done for. And, believe it or not, I really am interested in the past! I love history, family history and lore. But, we need to remember that we are looking at the past through our 21st Century eyes, with our 21st century values and capabilities. Things have changed. As I said earlier, I am sure we ALL have odd, questionable things in our heritage. In about 1902 it was assumed that my great-aunt spent 17 years in prison. She returned to her family and never said a word about it. No one will ever know why she was gone, but there was plenty of speculation in the family, from being a madam to possibly murdering one of her clients. Does it matter? Not to me. It is a great story, though. My husband's grandfather had two families, one on each end of the railroad line he worked on. He didn't die of TB, either, like the family lore has it. But they don't know how he really died, and, to their knowledge, no one from either family has ever met. My great-grandmother did not know that her mother died in another state until several years later, either. She hadn't run away or anything. She was simply out-of-touch for a few years. It is just the way it was back then. And, they didn't always know cause of death. People simply died and were buried. A lot of personal fortunes - personal, financial, historical, political - have gone astray through history. Even things thought to be well-documented, like historic battles, JFK's assassination - for goodness' sake, even the moon landing is disputed! It is all wonderfully interesting, and part of our lives. Five thousand dollars is a lot to spend on curiosity, though, to my way of thinking. But, if you have the money, spend it on whatever you like. Fundraising? Well, um.....

I was working in Arlington, VA where the Pentagon is located. We are basically across the highway from the Pentagon. We were having a regular work day. I think Glenda was the one that posted something here. I tried looking up CNN and all the other news websites but nothing was there yet. The only TV in our office was in the conference room which was being used. Finally after more commotion, we broke into the meeting to grab the tv and huddled into one office. We all watched in disbelief. We also thought an accident at first. There were so many rumors flying it was hard to know what was real. All day we thought the USA today (newspaper) headquarters was bombed down the road. We heard of car bombs at the Capitol and State Dept. After all the shocking things I had seen, I wasn't surprised by anything. We went outside where people were gathered around car radio's updating everyone. Weather-wise it was a gorgeous blue sky, but it was literally snowing ash from the Penatgon explosion. We could see the smoke plume from the Pentagon and it was black as night. Like pammyfay, I ALWAYS look at the spot where the Pentagon was hit. I can't imagine the people who happen to be driving by at the exact moment the plane hit. I'm shocked there wasn't a massive accident or pile-up? I remember being glued to the TV for 2-3 days and then I couldn't take it anymore. The sadness was overwhelming. I woke up each day and prayed it had been some kind of horrible nightmare. Thankfully I didn't personally know anyone who was killed, but there were lots of weird stories of "I should have been there" "changed my appt at the last minute" etc. and friends of friends, or cousin's cousin. A man from our office building, the floor below, was killed in the Pentagon. They put up a plaque in his honor that I used to see everyday and think about all the people who died that day. But with all the tragedy, I do remember how nice people were to each other. Everyone seemed to come together in common grief and pride in America. I can't believe it's been 11 years now.