Just having a grump this evening because all DH's connections - family and friends - have been absolutely A1 useless about ds. Useless. My friends and sometimes my family take practical action about ds to look after him and think about what he might need or want. DH's parents I give a pass to because they are elderly, heartbroken and at least have consulted with me and bought him a present for Christmas. But I've just emailed dh's only best friend, who has been lovely in staying in touch with me, but I've just in the end directly asked him to send a card - something, anything - to ds with a means of contacting him - he could be Ds's main connection to dh's life before he met me, in the future once the grandparents are no longer here. It's ten months since dh died and clearly this has not occurred to him yet. DH's brother is having a massive dustup with me, and hasn't directly contacted me since April. Hard, and painful, but it's much worse that he hasn't so much as phoned ds to see how he is doing - he clearly thinks of him as my son, rather than his nephew, and therefore to be ignored. DH's sister has mental health problems, and I don't have any expectations of her, though she does manage to stay in touch with some people - obviously ds doesn't make the cut.
Well, this is being a single parent, I guess - nobody gives a shit about your child the way you do, and it is frightening sometimes to realise that. I guess I worked my socks off to make sure that am lucky that ds has such a great network of his own friends, who ARE looking after him. He has his piano teacher, who lost a son some years back who coincidentally had the same name as ds, and who is being just lovely to him. And my family do make some efforts. But pish em all. I wonder how much they really loved DH, if his son is so invisible to them.