Sorry for your loss. It is hard even though it is the natural circle of life. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach for about a year both times.
And sorry for yours.
Yes, it take s long time to recover.
After my mom passed, if it weren’t for the fact that I had three little children (2, 4, and 6) to take care of and force me out of bed in the mornings to cook for them and clean up after them, I would have sunk into a deep depression.
She passed in April and it was easily July before I felt the least inclined to do anything that I absolutely did not have to do.
Some friends encourage me to get the kids to swim lessons and I dragged my feet about it, but finally figured, what the heck and took them. It was like waking up.
We were fortunate because my mom was very wise financially.
YEARS before, she had taken care of things financially that would ensure that if anything happened to her, as much of her property as possible was beyond the reach of the government. She had sold her house to all us kids for $1 each and had a document drawn up that we HAD to let her live there unless two medical professionals determined that she w as incapable of living alone.
Also, when she was at the end stages of caner and we knew she was dying, my sister, (under my mom’s direction) who was joint with her on all her banking, transferred most of the money into another joint account with another sibling, and opened another safe deposit box and transferred the contents into that.
That way, when she passed and the bank froze all the assets, there was nothing to worry about, no problem with not being able to access any critical documents like birth certificates etc. and there were no family fortunes in that box, but access to those important documents was very helpful.
But if by some miracle she recovered, we’d have put everything back and nothing was changed.