How will I cope when you die, Mummy?

[Solo2]

One of my 8 yr old DSs asks this every night almost, as I'm giving him his last kiss and hug before he sleeps. It's usually part of a whole scene where he gets tearful, imagining life without me and feeling how that might be - and then realising he couldn't bear it.

I'm finding it hard to stay sensible and calm. I'm fairly fit and healthy - for a 46 and three quarter yr old! - and assure him I'm likely to live well into my 70s, by which time he'll be a full grown autonomous man, possibly with partner and children of his own and friends.

However, other than myself (single mum - no ex.) and his twin brother - there's no one else alive who loves him or his twin. I have a sister and a bro. but both are v detached and 'distant' in every sense and whilst they too have children, we rarely see them at all.

My twins have witnessed my grief - albeit moderated for them - as first my mother died, when they were 3.75 yrs and then my father died - not quite 2 yrs ago. A lot of their life so far has been coloured therefore by their only grandparents dying and their only parent coping with the death of my parents.

I show them and tell them that whilst I'm still v v sad about my parents dying, here I still am, alive and happy and loving my little boys and I tell them how I know my parents wouldn't have wanted me to be sad all the time. So I'm 'modelling' managing the death of parents and still enjoying life.

However, I wonder if early exposure to the death of their only grandparents has made DS too focused on death? His twin doesn't dwell on my potential death at all, despite being much more emotionally sensitive than his bro.

As my own greatest fear would be that I die before my twins are fully grown and thriving in independent life, I feel upset inside when DS voices his own fear, although I say all the right things. I also try to bring him back to the present and talk about positive things right now and tomorrow. Sometimes this helps a bit but as this happens wehn he's most tired and therefore vulnerable, it's hard to switch his mind set.

He doesn't 'use' it as a ploy to get me to stay with him, as he and his twin are v v good at enjoying going to bed and sleeping. So it's not at all a manipulation. He is a bit obsessive with thoughts and ideas (and is 'lightly touched with Asperger's traits) and I think that's partly why he focuses again and again on this. But I also think he is genuinely wondering how to cope with the death of the one you most love - and even most of us adults find that a difficult issue.

Has anyone else had experience of this and has anyone any ideas how to manage it?

I hear same worries from DD8 and DS5, and they haven't had hardly any exposure to people dying.

I tell DC that by the time I die they won't mind so much. We will all be ready for it by then. I hope that's not a fib and that I don't die suddenly and soon, but I don't think anything could prepare them for that possibility, anyway.

And I say that death has to happen so that there can be new people and other beginnings. (I am quite Darwinist, so that helps me accept the inevitability of it, too).

I haven't been asked this yet but I asked my mum all the time when I was little. I would get very upset and I think she used to say I won't die until you are very very old.

Then she died seven years ago and I am not very very old. I always thought I would completely fall apart but while I am affected by it and do find it hard, I have continued to live. I shall tell my children how amazing we are as people that we can cope and be happy and amaze ourselves by how well we cope and that death is a brief interval until we are all together again. Oh and I will say it wont happen for a very long time because CantSupinate I actually think you are right.

Oh, but death is not the end of everything if you are an atheist... because we still have great memories. And I like the nature/cycle of life too.

I wonder whether you are acknowledging that he will/would be sad and that that's ok and normal and natural. You sound like you are dealing with it brilliantly tbh, but I just had the thought that perhaps you could talk about the ways in which we show SADNESS (and then what we do to make us feel better). If he is sensitive/in tune with his emotions, he could almost enjoy (wrong word), savour those negative emotions, and need a way to express them. Hmmm... not sure if that makes sense...

Condolences about your loss by the way. It must have been very hard, don't worry about showing your grief in front of them - it is normal to be sad.

DD is 8 and me or DH dying is at the top of her worry list. She often gets herself worked up and starts crying about us dying and how upset she'll be. I always make sure not to promise that I won't (or she'll have that to deal with as well if I get knocked down by a bus). But I say the same as OP - that I'm fit and healthy and can't see any reason why I would die yet and by the time I do, I'll have become a nuisance anyway.

Her obsession with dying has made DS(5) more aware of it. He decided the other day that he wanted to die so he could see what it was like being a star. But when I explained that he wouldn't be able to go back to being a boy and get cuddles etc he changed his mind!!

My son went through this at about the same age when his grandmother died. He became very anxious about his father dying. We kept explaining that his father took great care of himself and did all he could to stay fit and healthy and would continue to do so.

It seemed to pass after a while. I wonder whether it's a developmental stage.

i think it is a psychological stage they go through, and in some ways NEED to go through, its very important to acknowledge these feelings and talk about it.

Its one of the stages of realising that they are seperate individuals from parents, and will have a life of their own to lead, to make their own choices and decisions etc after we stop being the main influence in their lives (not only from us dying but from them growing up. A focus on our death is a way of seeing the cycle of life, its instinctive to realise that as they grow up, we are growing old and QED will die).

Honesty is best i think, whatever your tack (atheist, humanist, religious etc).

Do you have a guardian in mind (better still, named in your will) in case you do get hit by a bus? A good friend or someone? Their father? Because when my DCs have had similar fears I've been very matter of fact about it and said that X would look after you if anything happened to me and DH, so they have something/someone tangible to think about. It helps that it's someone they really like and know well (father of my grown up DCs).

You could also point out (as I have) that while you miss your mum lots, you've still coped and got through it and you can still be happy and have fun, and that it will be the same for him.

My son is 8 and he does this. It has increased recently. I know of another boy in his class who is also experiencing great anxiety about being left/parents dying. Neither boy has not experienced any bereavement.

I wonder if it is more an expression of how much you mean to him?

My son has developed his own theories about what happens after death. He thinks we (our family) are all part of the same spirit/person and when we die we join up together, and it all starts again. I'm not religious nor particularly spiritual but we do ponder together what might happen.

Thinking about a guardian sounds like a good idea?

I don't know a single person I think would do as good a job at bringing up DC as me and DH. So I can't even being to think about who would look after them if anything happened to us. Though I know I am down as guardians for DC of DSis AND Dbro so I make sure they never travel together.

Thank you for all these helpful replies. The worst thing for me, which some of you brought up, is the lack of a good enough gurdian for my twins, if I die.

My sister and brother are mentioned as joint gurdians in my will. However, my sister is almost the complete opposite of me, in personality - although benign.

She is divorced, with 5 children - 3 of whom are grown up. Her youngest - 11 yr old twins are largely completely independent already, as she devotes almost her whole life to an incredibly successful professional business she runs 24/7. She travels abroad and her eldest son aged 21 is supposed to keep and eye on her twins but barely does.

She's sometimes offered to have my twins overnight when I've been overwhelmed by work/ stress/ illness - which is v kind of her. But I couldn't accept her offers, as it wouldn't be her looking after them. They'd be left to look after themselves, at age 8 .

Nannies have largely brought up her DCs and now she feels all are old enough without. The 3 eldest still live at home too (working or students) and so in a way she does have live in sort of 'aupair care' but the elder ones barely interact with the 11 yr old twins.

The entire family are emotionally cut-off, not at all huggy/ cuddly. My twins are being raised in the opposite way - loads and loads of physical affection, me always, always there for them (I haven't been out in the evenings since they were born). I can't imagine how they'd cope in a household run by my sister.

My brother is possibly worse. He has been incredibly hostile to me, especially during the time our father was dying and has so many unresolved issues from the past, really, jealous of the better relationship I had with both our parents than he did. He is a v aggressive person.

He's married and his wife works p/t and they've got young children of 5 and 6.5 but I barely know his wife. He refused contact with me over the last 2 to 3 yrs and has only begun to act at least less aggressively and detached from me, in his emails.

I've tried to have lots of contact with both sibs but they've made it clear they're not interested in having a relationship with my children and my bro. actually told our sister that he was furious that I'd made him a guardian of my twins in my will and how dare I assume he'd want to raise them if I died. He hasn't ever said this directly to me but I rarely have even email contact with him.

My more benign sister made it clear when I asked her about gurdianship that she'd only accept if I took out life insurance - which of course is sensible - but this is typical of her - v practical and logical and completely and utterly cut off from any emotions.

Unfortunately, these are really the only 2 people in my life that I could ask to be guardians. I have no v close friends who could/ would be in that role. I suppose that's why I feel so fearful of dying too early before my sons are grown.

I'm sure you're right, the people who said that maybe my son is simply going through a developmental stage, especially as others have cited cimilar experiences without family bereavements. DS also said the other night that he couldn't imagine how to think about what it's like to die.

I said neither could I nor anyone really but that I suspected it was like going to sleep and not being aware/ consious and just not waking up again.

Our roots are Roman Catholic and they're baptised and have made their First Holy Communion but I only did this in memory of my mother - an RC. I'm actually an atheist (Richard Dawkins was once my tutor, several decades ago)and in our family, we talk about religions being belief systems, rather than reality. I do refer to my late mother and say, "I bet she'd have been really proud of you now!" or "I can just imagine grandad enjoying your sense of humour" and I've spoken to them about how people do live on in our memories.

I also say to DS and his twin - "Can you feel Mummy's love circling you as you sleep all night? I'm ALWAYS with you...my love is always there and lasts forever, just like my Mummy's love is still here for me."

I hope this helps and in a way, I suppose I'm trying to prime them now about how to cope when oneday I do die. It seems that none of us really get help with how to manage this and I just had to clutch at whatever was inside me, as both my parents died and work out a way of coping for myself.

I also emphasise to my twins that I really, really want them always to love each other and keep in contact with each other, lifelong because they've seen the pain I've felt when my brother was brutal to me as our father died and didn't even acknowledge me at the funeral. This was almost harder than the death of my father.

I know in more 'normal' families, siblings can really help each other when parents die. My sister never ever shows vulnerable emotions and not one of us has cried or shown any sense of grief in front of the other or comforted the other since our parents died.

So I want my sons to do it differently, even though I can already see they're v v different to each other and the one who worries about my death has mild Asperger's so can't be there for his twin in the same way as his twin might be there for him

Sorry this is so long....lots to express!! It's interesting how I'm so into expressing feelings and talking about this kind of deeper stuff, whereas my sibs are closed off totally...