Last year I picked Jacob up from school early, after one of his very infrequent meltdowns. On the way home, as his tears were drying, he said "I think I'm going through a tougher thing than anybody else in my class". Very perceptive.
Now we are going once a week to Ele's Place ,
http://www.elesplace.org which is a support group for kids who have lost a parent or close relative. It's really good. Jacob has been doing something very difficult, tougher than what almost all his friends have been through. That's true, and he's very strong. Now, he can also meet other kids who are going through the same tough thing. I'm sure it's good for him to see that he's not alone.
And I'm not alone either. While the kids meet, the parents also meet. I think our activities are less structured -- we just sit around in a circle and talk.
Shortly after Nancy died I joined the Widownet email list, you can probably find out about it here:
http://www.widownet.org/ It was a huge help to be able to talk (via email) with people who were going through the same thing I was. Somebody would tell a story about a clueless person saying something insensitive, and *we'd all get it!* Because we were all in the same place. The ladies and gents there were a huge help to me.
My time spent on Widownet tapered off to near zero about a year ago when we moved to GO. I didn't miss it much, and didn't really think I needed a support group. But now I find that I do like the support group, and I look forward to going to Ele's Place each week.
Isn't it amazing and odd that talking about your problems makes them less painful? It's totally illogical. But I don't have to understand how the magic works to accept that it does work, and to enjoy the results.