You know, after our neighbor's kindergartener was murdered, the parents just hung on & survived for the first year or two--their children helped them keep going, because they had to get up & feed them, clothe them & get them off to school. But they were just numb for a very long time. The fog started to slowly lift, a bit at a time. He went to work on autopilot for quite some time, though.
I always thought , but for the grace of God, how I'd react, I had a friend from childhood, who lost all five of her children in a fire and a week later her husband died from injuries, she was at work, I do not know how one survives this