I am so sorry for your losses. I had a similar situation, but mine was my mother and brother. My mom had a heart attack and while she was in the hospital she also suffered a stroke. We had all of our attention on helping her get better and my 47 year old brother had a heart attack and died. On the day we were having his viewing they decided to send my mom home from the hospital. We were all in shock over her sickness, his death, and then we had to get her home and settled. My brother wasnÂt married, and he lived with my mom. I have 6 other brothers and 5 sisters all scrambling around to get things settled and get to the viewing, so some of us were there at different times, and not all of us at the same time, which probably seemed strange to friends and family that werenÂt aware of the situation. Anyway what IÂm trying to get at is we didnÂt feel we gave him proper attention during his death, so when the 6 month mark came, my mom was doing much better, and we were still in numbness and grieving, we decided to have a celebration of his life. We got the activity center at our church, invited friends and family to celebrate with us. We asked that each person write down a memory they had of my brother, and if they had any pictures to attach them to the memories, and we made them into a scrap book. It wasnÂt anything formal, just friends and family and memories. We were able to laugh and cry together and give our undivided attention to his memory. So I think maybe you could do that for your son, and get some closure to your feelings of not giving him your full attention. By the way, I think you gave all you could give considering the circumstances. Again, I am sorry for you losses!

I suddenly lost my husband 7 wks ago after 34 yrs of marriage. He just retired after 30 yrs at a job he hated and was finally doing something he loved. We had all kinds of dreams and we had just started to enjoy them, now I have to make new dreams for myself without him and I don't like it. I cry all of the time, and I have learned to stay away from people so I don't have to deal with their thoughtlessness. Unfortunately they mean well but because they haven't been through what we are going through they have no idea what will comfort us. Though nothing comforts us at this time. I'm not going to tell you that it will get better, I "hate" it when people tell me this because right now I can't think about tomorrow. Take one day at a time, don't think about tomorrow it will come soon enough and you can deal with it then. You just lost your husband, you need to take care of yourself and cry, cry, cry and then cry somemore. It may not seem as though it is helping but 5 weeks from now it will. You will have your good moments and your bad moments, and your bad moments will be more often then the good ones. This is normal for someone grieving a loved one. I have been reading books on grief written by professionals who have experienced a loss of a spouse and they have helped me to realize all of the emotions I am feeling and going through are normal...as normal can be. Please take care of yourself and hug your children whenever you need him because he is in them. Keep 'blogging' trust me it helps to put it into words. Hugs, Karen

Reading all of your posts have made me realize I am not alone in how I feel about losing my Mom.. I lost my Mom Sept 10th 2010 she died of complcations of a debilitating stroke that she had a year prior.. It was my worse nightmare her dying as when she had the stroke in 2009 she didn't really know me most of the time and she had no idea where she was or what happened to her and could do nothing for herself so really i lost her twice.. I had went to visit her the night before she had her stroke and I stayed late and she walked me to the door i can remember her waving goodbye to me how did I know that would be the last time she would do that or be the same person.. I feel guilty for leaving her that night but I didn't know this was going to happen.. I always called her every morning to make sure she was up and had ate and taken her pills but she didn't answer the phone ..I wasn't concerned as she sometimes slept late so I waited a little while and called again she still didn't answer so I called her neighbor and asked if she had seen MOm and if she would go to her apt and check on her I just was not thinking anything was wrong..Her friend did and she said Mom didn't answer the door but she said it sounded like she could hear Mom's voice.. So I got myself together and went to her apt we had a hard time getting in as she had locked the screen door. When we got in I found Mom on the floor in a sort of a twisted uncomfortable position ,I said Mom what happened do you know who I am and she said yes that I was her Mom I knew something was wrong , we called the emergency squad and they came and tried to get Mom up and to stand and her legs were like rubber and she was not speaking things that made sense the apt was a mess as she had been stumbling and falling trying to stand or get some where she had bloody bruises on her arms . We got her to the hospital and they xrayed her and ran tests she had had a very bad blood clot stroke that should have killed her they said but didn't it left her paralyzed on her whole right side and plus affected her sight as she saw double it was bad.. They told me there was nothing they could do she stayed in the hospital for 4 days and then told me I had to decide something ..I knew I couldn't take care of her by myself as I had severe back problems and she was going to need 24 hr care I had no other siblings or no other family close and my Mom nor I had the money to hire someone to help me.So against all I beleived and didn't want to do i had to put her in a nursing home something I swore i would never do .. The year I had her in there was a nightmare in itself,I had to fight with them not literally but you know what I mean to get them to take care of her right I was always upset everytime I visited her as I knew things were not right I would talk to them and ask why ,they would always blame it on some one else she had MRSA twice while she was there and an infection of the colon called C-Diff both staff infections were very contagious.. I talked to people outside of the nursing home to try to get help and called the state and couldn't get anything accomplished they don't care about elderly people and maybe because Mom was on Medicaid maybe that was not good either..It just was a living nightmare I was so upset all of the time after I would leave seeing her it affected my health and I hated seeing Mom like she was as she would not want to have lived if she knew she was having to depend on someone else to do everything for her and she was totally bedfast.. I was the only one to go and visit her as all other family was far away and the nursing home knew that and i think they took advantage of it I tried to go at different times but it didn't help it was just so hard and my husband was not a supportive person for me so i was dealing by myself which was very difficult.. She very seldon knew who I was she could talk at times and sometimes she was silent I continued to talk to her..The times she knew me and was able to tell me she loved me i will cherish in my heart..I was with her the day and through the night till the next moring when she passed holding her hand and singing to her as I always did the whole time she was in there..I would try to get her to sing with me the songs she knew to try to keep her mind alert and talking.. I just have guilt of having to put her in the nursing home and how she had was taken care I understand nursing home are short staff but I think they could do better then they do ,there were a few that really cared and did a good job but most of them could have cared less and the ones that would take the time and do a good job they would let them go so sad.. I miss my Momma so much I miss her voice being able to ask her things and hugs she was my best friend and was there when no one else was always..I feel when she died a part of me went with her there is an emptiness inside of me .. We don't know how it feels to lose a parent or anyone until we experience it ourselves.. Some people can just deal and get on with it ..Lot of people don't want to hear how you feel or what you are experienceing and we need to be able to talk about our loved one it does help.. Some days are so overwheming that I don't I am ever going to be able to deal and then a few days will go by and I am ok but My Mom is always in my thoughts each day.. I know she is by my side at times or comes in my thoughts ,I really don't think it is going to get easier the pain at times is so great..It is just so lonely at times.. It is hard to keep it all in some days I will just cry alot till its all out then i will be ok ..The strangest things will set the crying in and comes on me when I least expect.. My heart goes out to each one of you that has lost a loved one and know I understand and feel your pain.. I do know that if it was not for my faith in God I would be in worse shape then i am I know that he helps and that crying and talking about your loved one is part of the grief process.

I'm so sorry. I know it must be so hard for you to have lost such a wonderful girl and it's even more hard for you to see your son in so much pain. No matter what the reason, it would hurt you to see him hurt. Both of you have lost future dreams and that hurts. It is very normal to feel the way you are feeling. When my daughter was killed, it took her boyfriend who was only 18 at the time, four years to date another girl seriously. He compared them all to Christin and they didn't measure up. He did meet someone that he fell in love with and married this summer. You son will do the same in time, and he will never forget this girl that he lost and you won't either. Keep her in your heart forever. It's all hard to understand and I'm so sorry for what you two are going through. Please continue to come here. ((((((((((((((((Mandi)))))))))))))))))))) Lu