How to help grieving mother from afar

[Anonymous]

My father just died and my mother (65) is getting to the depression stage of grief. My family (self, husband, 5 year old) were able to make it to their state in time to say goodbye, and I was actually the one with him when he died. My sister and her husband are local to mom and are offering a lot of good in person support. He was a very difficult person and I'm definitely grieving differently from my mother, but it makes me very sad to see my mother so sad and I wish I could do more. I Facetime at least once a day, and she usually loves chatting with DC, but DC has pulled back and gotten resistant to video chatting since her grandfather died (normal reaction to death and not something I want to force). She's coming to visit next month, and we'll probably do a surprise visit to see her in July. If you've been through this, what helped? Any advice or wisdom is much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry, OP, that's hard and the pandemic makes it harder.

Does she have friends/hobbies you could encourage? Or is there an online activity your DC could do with her? My kid's friend plays online chess with a grandparent, for example.