Teach Your Children Well
I have seen a lot of comments on Instagram about children lately. A lot of it has to do with the fact that it is time for school to begin again. Some widows and widowers are facing the first time they have to explain to their child’s teacher that your spouse has died.
There have also been posts about how and when to explain to very young children what has happened to their universe. It isn’t easy at any age. This blog is kind of a continuation of my last blog: My Story.
The First Few Days
If you remember, in my last blog I said that you wouldn’t believe the things I asked of my children in the first few days. Even the first few hours. I had a son, Justin (26), in the National Guard, a daughter, Megan (17) a senior in High School, a son, Jack (14) and a daughter, Mandy (13) in Middle School.
When Ken died, the priest at Jack’s school called him out of class, explained to him what had happened, and brought him home. Megan came home on the school bus, but Mandy had stayed after school for a skating party.
I was busy talking to the priest and the people from the coroner’s office. I actually asked Megan to go and pick her sister up after the party. I was a wreck. I probably couldn’t have driven the car out of the driveway, but I expected her to not only drive there and pick Mandy up, but be faced with the inevitable burden of explaining to her why I wasn’t there.
Ken died on a Thursday. That evening Jack went to rehearse his saxophone solo for a Style Show, where he was scheduled to perform the coming weekend. I don’t even know how he got there. On Friday all the children went to school. They certainly would have been excused, but it was time for the annual State Testing and I think maybe they felt more comfortable there than at home. On the weekend I watched through my tears as Jack performed beautifully. I really don’t know how he was able to hold up.
This Is NOT OK
The funeral was on Monday. The house was full of relatives and friends trying to comfort the children and me by talking of “better places” and “no more pain,” etc. I even made the mistake of saying to my daughter, Megan, “Now Daddy’s back doesn’t hurt anymore,” to which she replied, “I want it to hurt!” Silently I agreed, “good for you, I wish it hurt like hell.”
It was March and it seemed like from the time Ken died, through the day of the funeral, the wind was relentless. He was not happy to be leaving either.
The Plan
In the next few days, I tried to reassure the kids that we would be OK. I had, naturally, spoken to the insurance people and was able to let them know that we wouldn’t starve or lose the house.
I told them that Daddy and I had a plan that I was determined to follow through on. All they had to do was stay on track and take care of their own business ( school primarily) and I would take care of everything else.
It didn’t occur to me that we should seek some kind of counseling or grief support group. I hadn’t needed any “Mother’s little helpers” or other medication in the days following Ken’s death and I guess I thought of all those things as being a crutch that we didn’t need. Mandy did attend a grief support group at her school a year later when a friend of ours (the father of one of her classmates) also died unexpectedly of a heart attack and his son joined the group.
Ken died at a time when all the children seemed to be on promising paths to success. Justin was in the National Guard, as I’ve stated, and Megan was graduating from high school and starting college in the fall. Jack was starting high school and had hopes of playing baseball and football. Mandy, who has learning disabilities, was going into seventh grade and doing really well.
What Went Wrong?
Ken and I were a real team. There was never any playing one parent against the other to get what you want. We always presented a united front and we were pretty firm. If you were in trouble in school, you were in trouble at home. We once went into one of Justin’s school conferences and had a teacher immediately begin to apologize. She thought we would be angry because she had found it necessary to discipline Justin for some infraction. We assured her that we supported her 100%. She later wrote us a letter thanking us and telling us how rare our response had been.
We made our children write letters of apology, return items they had “found” and other acts that were always met with surprise from our friends. We used to joke to each other that we were “the last responsible parents in America.” Pride goeth before the fall.
When Justin graduated from high school, he had an opportunity to work in an apprentice job at the steel mill. It was supposed to last 3 months (summer) and then a few would be chosen to hire on permanently. The money was too good to turn down, in his opinion, so he deferred college and went to work. Even though he was over 18, had a good job, and a car, he was living in our basement and was expected to follow our rules. He paid rent ($50./week) and had a curfew because there were younger children in the house that had to get up and go to school and we couldn’t have him coming and going at all hours.
Two years later, when he was 21, he had lost the job, wasn’t going to college and stopped paying his rent. We told him he had to leave.
After Ken died, when Justin’s deployment was over, I let him move back in. It was good to have a man in the house (even though Jack thought he filled that position at 15), and I felt sorry for him. He stayed until he was 30. There were jobs obtained and lost, financial problems, auto accidents, and failed relationships. Finally, he found himself and today he is married to a great girl and hopefully financially stable.
Megan
Megan had a job her last two years of high school. She started college the fall after Ken died. I was driving Ken’s van, so I let Megan take my car to school. I thought she was doing pretty well.
That winter a boy she had known all through school was killed in an automobile accident. She came home for the funeral and missed a week of school. When she went back she never managed to catch up. The second death in a year hit her hard and she started picking up some bad habits with alcohol and other things.
She had met a guy, Antonio, the summer after Ken’s death and now she was spending all her time with him. Eventually, she got pregnant. I don’t know what Ken would have done, but I couldn’t turn her away. She and Antonio moved into her room in my house.
After a few months, he convinced her to move with him to California where his mother and sister lived. I cried, but I helped them pay for their move – and I helped them pay for their move back a few days after Antonio, Jr. was born. They moved into a place of their own for a while but sooner or later they would always come back.
Over the years they had two more children and moved to Alabama and back (also with my help). They had a few legal problems with alcohol-related driving offenses and held and quit numerous jobs. I also allowed Antonio’s family to live with us for some time and even one of his mother’s friends.
Finally, in 2014, before the birth of their fourth child, they were married. They seemed happy and helped out with the household expenses. They remodeled a bathroom, painted the screened in back porch and installed new carpeting. They bought new kitchen appliances and new furniture for the living room so they could entertain their friends somewhere other than their bedroom.
Unfortunately, a few weeks ago without warning, (to me- Megan probably had an idea it was coming) Antonio moved out. I’ve been crying ever since. I don’t know if I should have made them try to make it on their own or make them more comfortable here. I feel if you were to look the word “enabler” up in the dictionary you would find my picture. It may not have anything to do with me. They have been together since they were teenagers, maybe they are just tired of each other, but that is not the example that was set for them by Ken and I. Or by my parents who celebrated their 71st Wedding Anniversary this year.
What Should I Have Done Differently?
Should I have been more involved in their day-to-day activities instead of telling them to “take care of their own business?” Should I not respect their privacy when they “Don’t want to talk about it?” Should I not feel sorry for them? Their Dad set a wonderful example of honesty, morality, integrity, why was it so hard for them to follow? Would counseling have helped?
This has gone on a lot longer than I intended. I haven’t even gotten to Jack and Mandy, who I will talk about in my next blog.
Let me know how you handle situations with your older children. I see a lot of posts of young widows with little children. Sometimes I envy the fact that they are starting with a clean slate, but then my children wouldn’t have gotten to know their Dad at all…and that would have been worse.
Until next time…this is Kitty