If you are reading the information on this web site, it is most likely because you want/need to find ways to support a grieving child/teen.  Please make sure to also read the materials included in the children and teen sections.  These are the materials your child/teen is reading and much of the information also applies to adults. 

When a mother dies, there are many, many implications for the surviving adults who loved her: her spouse, siblings, parents, friends, etc.  Before all other considerations, these adults are grieving.  To some degree or another, these adults may be responsible for parenting the surviving children. 

The maternally bereaved children Mommy’s Light serves are being raised by:

• their fathers (in some cases including step-mothers)	60%
• foster parents	12%
• grandparent or great-grandparent	10%
• aunts	7%
• older siblings	6%
• other (stepfather, cousin, mother)	7%

In the sections that follow, the focus is surviving fathers/grieving husbands.  Much of what is here, though, also applies to adults who loved and/or were related to the mother who died and who have parenting responsibility for the surviving children.  Note – throughout this section, the word “children” includes teens and is used because, regardless of age, the surviving young people were their mothers’ children.