Being widowed with a child or children is a challenge. Not only are you faced with your emotions of losing your husband or wife, but you must help your child or children manage their emotions and be strong for them. It is painful enough dealing with the life you once shared with your love one and how it has been shaken due to the loss and now to try and help your children as well as yourself. With all that widow/widowers have to handle without their spouses, imagine how a child’s mind is processing the fact that their father or mother is no longer a part of their lives. As it affects the widow/widow, it also affects the children too.
As children get older, moments of them missing and wishing they could see their love one will never go away. Just as the widow/widower miss and wish the children does too. They will even question “Why me or Why this had to happen to us”. I hear this too often and sometimes it’s difficult trying to answer. There is no right or wrong answer, but what we do know is that things happen in life that we have no control over. All you can do is try to explain that the best way possible to them comprehend. We know we can’t control the sickness that some of our loves one may have had or that accident that happen that has taken them from us, so we try to explain situations to our children without making it difficult for them to understand. As widow/widowers are trying to understand “WHY”, so are the children.
Widowed parents need to show as much love and support to their children as others show you. Just like this journey is hard for you the widow/widower, it is also hard for the children involved. They have to see children with their fathers and mothers coming to school and sometimes both to support them in their activities and here they are with one. Some children has lost both parents and I couldn’t imagine what that child may be feeling when seeing other children with their parents or just one parent. Just hearing another child say “Mommy or Daddy” may affect the child who now has to live without a parent. We have to be mindful of children’s feeling because they need that unconditional love and support also. If you find it difficult to help them during this difficult time, be sure to seek other resources that will better help you and your child/children get through this difficult time.
2SowSeeds 