Oh gosh, I am so sorry to hear of your family's hardship. My condolences
I do have to say way to go reaching our for support instead of eating your feelings immediately. That is hard under these circumstances.
It shows such a depth of caring, the outpouring of your heart in that message. There actually are a few things you can do for her, if you feel like you can and want to. One, a very sweet heartfelt letter would Im sure be well received. She may not be able to really recall things people say during her grief, the letter she can hold on to..reread when down...and recall longterm. Its so sweet of you to so genuinely care for a stepfather, some even adult kids never accept the important role of their parents spouses.
You could also offer to help with any of the organization. There are a lot of loose ends during death, and many of them can be dealt with over the phone.
Also just offering to help with the phone chain to keep everyone in the extended friends and family in the loop can take a lot of pressure off the grieving spouse, so they dont have to have the same emotionally charged convo over and over and over.
For yourself - to get a little relief.....exercise if you can. It is one of the few things that really truly immediately destress me and help when I feel close to off the rails with my eating.
If you can also do things that focus on these two themes, I find they help when under great stress:
- anything involving touch (giving or getting a massage, nails done, hug your friends). seriously, it releases chemicals in the brain that help.
- anything that requires a great deal of presence! any type of task that requires a great deal of mental focus allows for us to take a break from thinking about what is causing the stress. working out fits here...but so do other things.