@Cwoffeelover1 you have my heartfelt sympathy because I went through this in 2016. We had 2 kids.
I initially had to give up work because the consultant said ge'd recover. He was dead 10 days later, but I only knew he was dying the day he died because our GP told me.
After 11m and spending all the life insurance, I went back to work. Years 1-3 are tough, I'm not going to kid you. I felt like I was at the bottom of a well and everyone was walking around above me. I felt I couldnt hear or see well. I went on anti depressants after 6m. I came off them 12m later because by then I was at work, I'd managed to get into a groove with the kids and we were coping again.
My hubby told me he thought he'd die young. I told him he was nuts. He told me he wanted me to meet someone else. I purposefully went out and made a bunch of new friends to keep me on track. I did not want to meet anyone else, so I still dont have a future because I havent mapped it out yet.
Your DH would not want you to have to battle on your own. You're a few years younger than I was when it happened to me and your kids are younger than mine. There is no rush to change anything, but if you meet someone in time, take it slowly.
He is still with you. I hope you talk to him and try to feel his presence and remember, you dont need to be strong. You need to grieve.
You and the kids will be fine. It will take time to hit am even keel but you will.
This is a poem my friend sent to me I hope it brings you some comfort xxx
'I wish I could say you get used to people dying. But I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it.
Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.
As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall, Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves and lots of shipwrecks.'