Hello, I'm back after deaths in the family.

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I've been away for a while, and during that time my mother and my uncle, my dad's twin brother, died within a month of each other.

I haven't been able to grieve that much; I did cry over both of them and every now and then it hits me that my mom's gone and can never be replaced.

I had been grieving my mother for months, ever since I found out she had senile dementia. The hardest part is knowing just how smart and how special she'd been before her mind went. On the other hand, I feel like I haven't really had support from her since my twins were born because she, an Aspie like myself and also "losing it' even before the dementia diagnosis, couldn't support me or help me much. While she was here she was really trying to help, but her attempts caused more problems than they solved. Fortunately, she did not live with us so I didn't have to see her painful decline--and unfortunately too, since I was in no place to help her or my father through it all. I have a lot of conflicting emotions over her death: relief that she's no longer in agony and guilt about not doing more.

My uncle's death was a complete surprise. My dad knew, but he'd chosen to keep his long-time illness secret from the rest of the family. At my mom's funeral he seemed just fine; the next day he was in the hospital. I feel guilt that I never got to know him better than I did either. He was a very good man.

Now I have to keep my spirits up for my boys and I can't be with my dad because of my responsibilities to my family. I call him every day and he insists he's fine; his health is good, but he very much misses my mother, his closest companion for more than forty years.

I've invited my father to come visit us, but since my boys are autistic and very active and sometimes hard or even dangerous for a fragile older person to deal with, that visit cannot last too long.

I don't know if there is an answer to any of this; we just keep going on each day.

Thank you for reading.

Sweet Pea hugs.

Welcome back.

Sorry about your recent losses. I went through that almost 9 years ago when my mother died. The funeral wasn't the hardest part. The hard part was when my siblings and I met with the docs in a conference room in the hospital to decide about whether to unplug, and let nature take it's course, and whether to bring her home for the last days, or to have her put in a nursing/hospice place for the dying. They could no longer keep her in the regular hospital. I think there were some time limits involved in her insurance coverage. Although my mother was a nasty person much of the time, I lost it at the conference and was crying my eyes out. I must have done a good job, because I was okay for the funeral. We would not have had a choice about where in the state hospital system she would have been placed. It could have been at the far end, leaving us with no way to visit every day. We opted not to unplug, but to bring her home. Over the next couple of days we made the arrangements, but my mother died in the hospital on the day she was to be brought home, just before the ambulance guys got there to transport her.

I do agree that a frail, older man might feel over whelmed by a visit with two active young boys. In your father's case, you should keep up with the calls, and if your sons are old enough, have them email him letters, or at least drawings, and stuff like that. If he doesn't do computer's there is still snail mail. You can send stuff from your boys once or twice a week that way. You can even send cassettes of your boys recording messages and stories for your dad. You need to have him still feel connected to the family at a time like this.