Hi knb, I lost my Dad on Oct. 20/09. He had a stroke. He lasted a week before he actually passed away. My Mom passed away when I was 28. If I learned anything from that, I am 47 now, is that it takes time. Grief hurts. There are no ways to avoid it. Try and accept the feelings you are having and don't fight them. There is absolutely no right or wrong way to go through this. As far as how long, everyone is different. If you can see one bright spot in everyday, even just a minute, you'll been on the right path. One minute leads to two, then an hour, then a day, then a weekend and so on. Before you know it, your grief won't be the all consuming power in your life like it is now. Just allow yourself to grieve, but most importantly focus on the bright spots. They are the light at the end of your tunnel so to speak. I am as well struggling with the loss of my Dad. But I know from experience what to expect, and what is normal for me. I have two girls 12 and 10, so I know that having kids can make it harder to cope. All I can say is ask for help if you can, from friends or family and hang in there. Trust me, it will get easier. Grieving is a process. You can't skip ahead without going through what your mind and body need to feel better. I'm at a point in my grief, where I need to focus on my bright spots. If I don't, it will pull me down too much. I'm actually looking forward to refocussing. Will I be grief free quickly? No, but I'll start to feel better. Little by little. And in time I know I will be back to normal. That's going to feel a whole lot better than where I've been. I hope this helped you, and all the best Lizzy

Thanks for the advice so far- it is very helpful. Paigect, we had considered moving closer to his kids a year ago, but it is not an option right now because of our jobs. There are also issues with his ex harrassing him (obscene phone calls and the like) and it seems that the stress level for my fiance is lower with him living away from her. I am not clear as to how much the autistic child depends on his father as part of his routine. When he was in my house, the child was very stressed and wanted to leave the whole weekend to go home, although we did everything possible to keep him occupied. Because of this, I believe it is just too disruptive to him to be traveled. He also acted the same way in his grandparents' house for the first few months until he adjusted to the routine there. But, because of the severity of his condition, I do not know if he would even notice the difference between monthly and twice-monthly visits. I don't want to make that assumption having never been exposed to a developmentally disabled child, but it seems to me that an infant would notice her dad gone more than he will. When he was here, his father did most of the caretaking, but because the autistic child needs so much supervision, I ended up taking care of the girl the whole time and cooking all meals for the family, etc. which was hard because I had been working all week and had no down time(my job demands a lot of me during the week). It is true that I have not been as active as I should be with going with my fiance to visit his kids at his parents'. This has been largely due to my pregnancy, but I do agree that after the baby is born I could, and plan to, take a more active role in going up there with him and spending time with the kids. The baby's grandparents will want to see her, regardless, and it is important to me that we are providing them with that opportunity. My fiance is trying to make alternate arrangments with his brother to bring the kids to the brother's house once a month to alleviate the stress on his ill mother. I hope his brother will accomodate this. I feel that it is not only exhausting to the grandma and to me to have him driving so far every weekend, but to my fiance to make this trip twice a month. Once a month would be more managable, and there is no reason why a 13 year old could not take the train here alone (after a practice run with dad). I also agree that he feels a great deal of guilt for the situation his children are in due to having divorced parents and probably overcompensating. Compounding it, is his ex wife not handling the situation very well. She has been living with someone else for longer than we have been together, but seems to be very jealous that her ex is doing fine without her and about to start a family with someone new. I have never met or talked to her and prefer to keep it that way, and my fiance tries to keep a business-type relationship with her. However, she has been feeding information to the daughter that her father will not want to see her and the son anymore once the baby is born, and this has created jealously between the daughter and the baby even though the baby is not born. I can only hope that the daughter will grow out of this or that the jealousy will be smaller once she meets her little sister. I do not know if it is normal behavior for a 13 year old to express such extreme jealousy toward a baby sister (she tells her dad that he is ruining her life by having this baby, that she was happy being the only girl, that she hates the baby). Otherwise, she is well behaved with me and I have enjoyed having her here the 2 times she came to visit. I have a wonderful relationship with my stepmother and hope that over time we will, too. The ex wife is sure to be very unhappy if we try to reduce the amount of time he is picking up the autistic son, as she seems to want to go out to bars and party a great deal, and cannot find another babysitter. It seems strange to me that she never wants her kids on the holidays. What she thinks matters very little to me, but the fact that she drags the girl into it makes the situation harder. To me, it is not appropriate to say anything negative about the other parent in front of the child. I believe that my fiance has a certain level of fear that she will try to take the kids away from him (which is ridiculous, he is a wonderful father to those kids and she would have no grounds in court). It is a complicated situation, and I just don't want to be selfish and whiny about it. I understand that there are real challenges associated with marrying a man is divorced with kids from a previous marriage, but I also believe very strongly that my baby deserves a normal life, and I don't want my only baby to miss out on time with her father. Again, I have no idea how much an infant needs her father but I expect that being away from home 2 weekends a month would interfere with their bonding. I can handle a great deal here on my own, and he does work very hard to contribute to this household while he is here, but to be gone so much seems excessive. All of this, I have discussed with my fiance, and he understands, but I can tell he feels a great deal of guilt and I don't want to make him abandon his children. Just the opposite. I just want to make sure I am not out of line for feeling this way because I don't want to make the situation even more unfair for all involved when there are 3 kids this affects. Any more opinions on this, I would really enjoy hearing- and thanks again for the input.

Thank you, everyone. He was a lovely cat, and he was best friends with the other two cats in that photo. The other two have been doing some serious meowing for him, especially the first night he was gone from here. Last night it was more quiet on their part.

@bry911, you just proved my point with this statement: There are some "would be" buyers who are serious and could get financing that don't have immediate access to 5% to 10% of liquidity. Lets assume you could find a home in the $77k price point here in Palm Beach county (not likely). Lets also assume that the seller accepted a financed offer over the many cash offers at that price point (also not likely). But if it were financed FHA, for example, the buyer would have to have 3.5% as a down payment plus 4% minimum of the purchase price for closing costs and pre-paid expenses. Probably more since the HOI is high here. If the buyer doesn't have access to the funds for the 5% EMD then that discussion is made at the time of the offer and the buyer has proven he doesn't have the capacity to close. Could he get gift funds? Yes, but then that discussion is known right up front too. Could the seller contribute toward his costs, only if it's agreed to in a contract, but then all the buyers cards are on the table. Same thing for VA mortgages except that the down payment is zero but the closing costs and pre-paids are similar. We don't have USDA here in PBC. The point is to not obligate the seller without also obligating the buyer. Your point is that the buyer is never obligated to follow through with the purchase right up to the day of closing and that losing $4-500 on an inspection and $500-600 on an appraisal is enough deterrent from a buyer that doesn't have the capacity or ability or desire to close. And then the seller has lost that 20 to 30 days entirely with a buyer that can't close and they knew it when they made the offer! My point is, if the buyer has no intention of actually closing, we would rather know up front before the seller signs the contract so the seller can choose not to accept an offer where the buyer doesn't have the capacity to close. All of this comes to light when we see the EMD or lack of EMD as a point of information separate from the "pre-approval". Then the seller can make a choice to go with one of the other buyers.