yes, it would have been rougher than it already was. the kids had been going steady for about 6 mo. when the accident happened and our daughter was killed. that night, it was like son and his girlfriend became superglued together. he asked me if he could get married the day he got out of the hospital. i tried to tell him this was not the time but they just wanted to be together all the time. we didn't know what to do because we knew they needed each other but we didn't want to deal with a high school pregnancy on top of everything else we were dealing with.

they bought an engagement ring and made a plan to elope. luckily, they were young and dumb enough not to keep it a secret at school and we found out about it. thank God we managed to stop them.

i have to give DIL a lot of credit, though. she was my son's rock as he grieved for his sister. even his therapist told me that sunshine (my nickname for my son) was doing his biggest grief work with her. she showed a lot of guts for a 16 year old girl. she stuck in there with him and is a joy for him and our family.