They do not really understand much of what is happening. He was only diagnosed in July, in other words fairly recently. We have begun to notice changes over the past couple of months. The children understand to a certain degree. The two oldest are 20 and 21 years of age. They're my husband's children from another relationship. They have already had to deal with their father being away from home when he was on missions. In my husband's case, it was really after he got back from Haiti that he began to deteriorate. The children went through adolescence with a father who was not very functional. It is difficult to come out the other side unscathed, even with all the good will in the world and even though we try to understand. You cannot heal the scars of their upbringing over night. It is a long process, you have to start from the beginning.
If they had known, if they had been able to... I should point out that Claude did not necessarily discuss his difficult experiences. He was hardly going to tell his children that he had seen a pile of decomposing bodies at a morgue in Haiti and that amongst them all he thought he had seen somebody who was still alive. That is not the sort of experience that people share with their children. I do not, therefore, think that the children are able to fully understand the state in which my husband finds himself.
If they were made aware of the situation, if both the father and the children were given support to help rebuild their relationship, a healthier relationship... He did not have a relationship with them before, that is one of the consequences of what he went through. The oldest children are aged 20 and 21, and one of them is having problems. In spite of this, year in, year out, his father told him that he should join the Canadian Forces. But it is out of the question for him, there is no doubt about that.