I miss my Daddy so much

Grief is a crazy thing.  Some days you can feel 'okay' and other days you just feel like you will never ever feel any joy in your life again.  All of us are going through different things  and are dealing with it in different ways.

Kobe cried a lot the first few months after Aaron passed away.  He then seemed to be okay with things and would talk about Noah and Aaron a lot without getting upset, but the last month or so he has been really struggling and missing them a lot.

He particularly misses Aaron and talks about it all the time.  It's hard listening to a four year old say things like 'before Daddy died' or 'when Daddy was still alive' and would then tell us something that he did with Aaron, or something funny that Aaron said.

Most of the time Kobe is such a placid, happy little man.   He is so easy to get along with and makes you smile all the time with the funny things he says and does. 

 

These are his flowers he made me one day at daycare 'cause I 'wuv' you and I know you 'wuv' flowers' :)

Other days the happy, placid Kobe that we know and love has gone and he is so sad and angry.  He has times where he is very agro and punches and kicks Jay and Harri, and yells at all of us.  When I tell him off he just starts crying and says 'I'm just missing Daddy so much'.  I don't think at all that he's saying it to manipulate me, and get out of being in trouble - I think he's just stating how he's feeling and trying to explain why he's not his usual happy self. 

It's so hard as I'm trying to teach him that expressing himself by hitting and screaming is not the right thing to do, and that it's okay to be sad and angry, but it's not okay to be naughty.  There has been times when I've had to put him in 'time out' to calm down and have a think as he is totally out of control and he sits in the hallway screaming at me 'I'm just missing Daddy sooooo much!'.   After having a cuddle and a talk he settles down, but within minutes he can be doing the same thing and when I tell him off he then says 'but now I'm missing Noah so much!'.

I know that it's good that he is talking about it and expressing how he is feeling,  and have spoken to a lovely child psychologist that we saw early on about some strategies to help, and things are settling down a bit which is good.   She explained it to me that we, his family, are the ones who are supposed to keep him safe and happy and that hasn't happened, so instead he is taking out his anger on us, which makes sense.

He makes me laugh as sometimes I say 'I know you are missing Daddy and Noah and are sad, but it's not good to be naughty' and then he stops his grumpy face and shows me a big smile and says 'look I'm smiling at you!' to cheer me up. 

One day he was really missing Aaron and walked around all day with his photo that is next to his bed. 

He took it everywhere with him.  It makes me so sad that I can't just fix things for him and bring his Dad and brother back.