Understanding Grief 4-1-10

Up until my latest trip to Mt. Shasta with my son I had been under the mistaken assumption that my 14 year old daughter and my wife were trying to make my life miserable in some very basic ways. However, I realized much to my personal dismay that this wasn't the case. While I was visiting and skiing with my son and old guy buddies of mine throughout the years in Mt. Shasta I realized that I "had a hole in my emotions" that wasn't there before.  My son had a "hole in his emotions" since his mother left when he was 3 and I raised him after that by myself with the help of my mother at times and then my 2nd wife. And now my 3rd wife has assumed that role for the last 15 years. We visited his biological mother this week this was very important as he hadn't seen his Mom for 7 years in person because he has been in southern California in College during this time and working. He last saw her on the day he married his first wife. He broke up with her 3 years ago and was remarried to a lady 12 years younger than he that is also a nursing student last year. She is very young and very beautiful. But sometimes, because she still is only 24 we worry about the longevity of this relationship as practical parents.

But what I came to understand made me feel much older than I normally do. I felt aged by what I have learned about myself. My mother's death has made me more irritable generally, and since my wife's last parent(her father) passed away only a couple of months before my mother, I wondered what God was doing to us. However, then I realized the basic structure because we both would tend to come out of our grief within 2 to 5 years together. However, the problem with this is these deaths tend to make us both more irritable and at times slightly irrational regarding some emotional issues. So we both have to be extremely careful how we communicate with each other so we don't create unnecessary problems not useful to either of us.

Just being aware that when someone dies you are very close to changes your personality(sometimes in extreme ways) empowers one to be careful to constantly be re-evaluating one's thoughts and emotions to keep one's life stabilized and workable and useful ongoing for everyone concerned.