I posted this in another area of the forum, but I thought it might fit here as well...
My husband passed away on August 11th from horrific injuries suffered in Iraq on April 10th (he was a U.S. Marine). He spent four months in the Critical Care Unit at Bethesda Naval Hospital and never regained consciousness, but due to a severe brain injury, he thrashed around in his bed a lot and got very agitated when people tried to touch him. He lost both his legs and one of his arms, became blind and deaf, and was hooked up to every machine imaginable. He suffered horribly. This was hard enough for me to have to witness, but for my four-year-old son, it was traumatizing...especially when he tried to give daddy a hug and was rejected.
My husband was a very loving father. He was a 15-year Marine Corps veteran with numerous combat deployments, so he knew to never take anything in his life for granted. Our son was spoiled to say the least.
When he was not deployed or at work, they spent every waking second together...they were best buds. But now that my husband is gone, my son does not seem to remember all those good times with his daddy. He may remember some of it, but the good times are far overshadowed by the horror of the last few months of my husband's life. He refuses to talk about how daddy was before he was wounded and passed away.
I guess I'm just concerned that, being as young as he is, my son will never really regain the positive memories of his father. I feel he will just remember the way he looked and acted toward the end. I want nothing more than for him to remember things the way they were...not the way they turned out. I always show him pictures and home videos and tell him stories about the things he and his dad used to do...but he just doesn't seem interested. I've taken him to a couple grief counseling sessions, but it just didn't turn out well. I'm just so worried that the good memories will die. His daddy was a war hero, and he might never even be able to appreciate and be proud of that fact because of the trauma of what happened. We have twin baby girls as well, who were born two months after my husband left for his last deployment. They will never know their father, but I want them to grow up at least knowing just how much he loved them.
I really don't know what to do. I guess I'm hoping maybe there is someone here who has been through something similar. Or even if any of you just have some ideas on what I might be able to do or say in order to keep my husband's memory alive in our house forever. These are crucial years in my kids' development, and I don't want to mess it up. My husband deserves to at least be remembered for the man he truly was. I guess that's all I'm asking. Sorry for being so long-winded, ya'll. But thanks in advance and God Bless.