Dinky

you are going through such a hard time at the moment and i know it is so hard to know what is the right thing to do or say to your children. i also know how hard it is to even just try and get out of bed in the morning to function let alone taking care of the family - believe me it took me at least 18mths to be able to "function" after the death of my dd.

my ds was 2mths shy of his 2nd birthday when his sister died, he saw the deterioration in her from the day she was diagnosed, he even gave her a "biscuit" after she died.

i really do not know what advise to offer you with your girls as they are a lot older than my son was at the time, in our situation we have felt that the best way we can deal with the whole situation is to talk openly and honestly to our son about his big sister and her death (although lately he has thrown quite a few "curly" questions in respect of dying lately - ie what happens to the body where does it go etc) we have just tried to be honest and answer his questions in the best way we can in a way that he would understand. i have thought about showing him his sister's ashes but we don't feel "right" about it at this time.

i found alot of support online after the death of my dd, i didn't post in forums much at all, but the reading of other's circumstances did help, maybe try googling something in respect of support for children after death - i am sure you will get alot of sites to help. i guess another option is to maybe get some sort of grief counselling. did you have access to pallative care when your father was sick - i know that eastern pallative care (who helped with our daughter) has grief counselling.

this is a topic close to me as i don't believe there is enough support out there after the death of a loved one, people sort of give you a magic figure of 6 weeks to "get over it" and then think everything is okay and really it is not. there really should be support there without you having to look for it.

anyway i probably haven't helped much, just hope you can get through the next few months/years as painlessly as possible.

hugs