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[quote=Anonymous]Has your husband lost a parent yet? It’s a very sad experience, at any age.

With the caveat that people experience emotions differently….I think the acute grief stage lasts 2-6 months. Give yourself that amount of time to feel really really down, cry almost daily, not feel like yourself etc.

I will say that you do have to go through the motions. You have to get up in the morning and eat and do basic caregiving for your kids, etc. It will feel hollow for  that acute stage, and then you should start to feel the grief become ever so slightly more distant. The grief will be there in some form for the rest of your life but it will get less acutely painful over time.

If you had a major surgery (bypass or the like) 2-6 mo of recovery time is reasonable. If you had a baby you’d need at least 12 weeks. Same thing with a major emotional loss like this.

I think people are often surprised by the longevity of grief—especially when it is a relationship that is one of a kind (father, mother) and when that relationship was deep and meaningful.

But one reframe, when you’re ready for it: grief is evidence—certainty!—that what you had with your dad was really beautiful. That’s why it feels like such a loss. If you can, try to inch yourself toward gratitude: not everybody has a beautiful relationship with their parents, and the fact that you did was a gift. A gift that probably led you to other gifts. One downside of getting that gift is this grief. <3[/quote]

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