Seventeen-year-old Kassandra Mantz lost her father, Lee, on Aug. 12, 2012.

Her little brother, Keegan Wyshosky, 7, lost his father, Pete, one year earlier on July 18, 2011.Her friend, Olivia Agosti, 17, lost her mother, Jackie, on Jan. 16, 2011.These children are just a few of the 1.5 million across the country who have had to learn to live again after losing a parent.Now, one mother is hoping to shed some light on a very real issue that many people just don't understand. Children grieve, too."It is so heartbreaking to see these kids who have lost a parent and then adults think that the kid is bad or angry because they don't understand," said Shalmar Herlihy of Summit Hill. "I want to bring awareness to this because I want people to understand what these children are going through and to be a little bit patient with them."Thursday, Nov. 21, is Children's Grief Awareness Day and Shalmar, Kassandra and Keegan's mom, and who lost her own mother at a young age, is hoping that everyone will help children who lost a parent by wearing blue to recognize that they are not alone.Losing a parentLife as Kassandra, Keegan and Shalmar knew it changed forever the morning of July 18, 2011 when Shalmar's fiancé, Pete, collapsed on the kitchen floor.Kassandra and Shalmar immediately started CPR, but their efforts to revive Keegan's father were unsuccessful. Pete was gone, the victim of a massive heart attack.At age 5, the boy didn't know what it meant that his father had died. He's had a hard time coping since then.Shalmar explained that he has had some anger issues as a result and also has been sad.During the interview, Keegan avoided questions about his father and at times broke down and cried as he played with the family dog."He doesn't know how to deal with his emotions," his mother explained, adding that he had rough kindergarten and first grade years. "He's starting to come around this school year."When there is a death of a parent, the schools really need to speak to the children of the child's class so that the other students understand why the child may be a little sad or why at the Christmas show they are heartbroken and can't even function to do what they have to do. Think about how much better his first grade year would have been had his classmates been tolerant of his crying or sadness. You have to educate them."Peace shatteredAs the months passed, the family walked hand-in-hand through the funeral, the first days at home without Pete and through the holidays.When Pete died, Shalmar's former husband, Lee Mantz, "stepped up to the plate and helped more with Kassandra and even with Keegan."At the one-year anniversary of Pete's death, Kassandra and Shalmar breathed a sigh of relief because they had learned to live again.But that newfound feeling of peace was short lived.It was a beautiful Sunday in August 2012 when the phone rang.As Kassandra, about to turn 16, answered the phone, she learned her father was in a bicycle accident in Lehigh Gorge State Park while enjoying the day out with his new wife.But it was not until they arrived at the hospital that she learned her father had passed away.At that moment, Kassandra's world shattered and she and her family realized that they would be walking down the grieving path a second year.After her father's death, Kassandra used coping skills she learned through being a peer listener, as well as through Pete's passing, to comfort herself as well as her little brother.She is OK talking about her father's death."I don't find myself struggling," she said, but noted that her math grade has gone down because Lee was the math whiz who helped her."Your faith has helped you accept things," Shalmar added. "Her faith has gotten her through a lot of this."Her classmates and the staff at Marian High School also helped Kassandra by sending flowers and being there when she needed someone to lean on.But the hardest part for Kassandra has been feeling like she lost part of her father's side of the family."My parents were divorced so I had two separate families," she said, noting that she split her time during the holidays between her mom and dad."It's hard on my stepmom because she feels she lost both of us," Kassandra said, adding that her stepmom tried to keep the traditions her father built alive, but it just wasn't the same. "I lost half of my holiday traditions."In Olivia's case, her mother, Jackie, died as a result of necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria that destroys skin, fat and tissues covering the muscles. Most people who contract the bacteria are healthy, but one in four dies.At the time, Olivia, of Tamaqua, was 14 and a freshman at Marian High School."It was rough," said the now high school senior. "My freshman year I had a hard time doing anything."She explained that after her mom's death, she started seeing a therapist to help her. She also credits Marian for its support.The hardest part was learning to live in her new family makeup, which consisted of her two older brothers and father."A loss of a parent is hard for anyone but when it's at a point in your life when you're going to need that person a lot, it's really hard and moments are so bittersweet," Olivia said, wiping away tears. "I went to my first prom and my mom wasn't there to see me. It's tough. My mom was my first loss."One thing that no one really knows is how hard it is," she continued. "Everyone looks at the child but it's really hard on the parent as well."I know for my dad, he now has to be my mom and my dad and it's hard for the kid to know that all the pressure is put on that parent. You need to be not only supportive of the child but also of the parent because they are learning a new role as well."Learning to live againAfter Pete's death, Shalmar found herself wondering how she was going to pick up the pieces and bring her family back together."My biggest thing was we always ate dinner at the table," she said. "When Pete died, my kids wouldn't eat at the table because they felt like they lost their whole sense of family."She realized that things that seemed so standard in daily life were now her responsibility, from shopping to bathing Keegan and putting him to bed.She recalled the countless nights Keegan would stay up screaming for his daddy until he cried himself to sleep."When you have these kids on your own like this you have to get yourself on a different routine," she said. "You have to figure out how you make it all work and you have to figure out how to deal with their grieving in the mix; and now it is 100 percent your responsibility to take care of the house, take care of the yard, take care of the kids, the animals, get them where they have to be and make sure they stay involved in activities."Shalmar said, her voice cracking, that she decided to keep every family routine to show Keegan and Kassandra that it was OK to grieve, but still live life without Pete.When Lee passed, Shalmar had the tools to help her children navigate the long road of grieving, which made it a little easier."Pete's passing made me stronger," Kassandra said, "and easier for when my dad died. I knew I had to be strong for Keegan because my 5-year-old brother wasn't going to have a dad and then when my dad died, I was trying to be strong for everyone else. I knew I had to be strong."Uncertain futureKassandra's strength helped Shalmar rebuild her family yet again.In addition to daily meals at the table, Shalmar started to build new traditions for Kassandra, Keegan and Olivia, who is like a second daughter to her."I make sure Olivia is here for everything," Shalmar said. "We carve pumpkins and bake Christmas cookies together. The first year of grieving I kept everything the same because they needed to know that it was OK to carve the pumpkins without Pete; it was okay to have Thanksgiving. The second year, I started to change things a bit so they could start new."The hardest part of learning to live again that everyone agreed on was living with an anxiety of not knowing if someone else would die.After Pete's death, Kassandra found herself worrying about her mother more often to the point of becoming overprotective.She would make excuses to call Shalmar just to hear her voice."I couldn't go back to work the first week (after Kassandra went back to school) because she was scared, so I had to stay where she could get me," Shalmar said.Kassandra acknowledged that her anxiety is the worst part of this whole ordeal."I was so scared, for like ever, because it was like, who am I going to lose next," she said. "I dreaded this past summer because Pete and my dad's deaths were both in the summer. It just makes you think.""Now that you see that you can lose someone, you wonder who else is going to go, so you are on edge all the time," Olivia added.Raising awarenessSince the passings of her children's fathers, Shalmar has done research on ways to help families cope with the death of a parent.No programs to help children walk through the steps of grieving are available in Carbon County. The closest is Ryan's Tree in Bethlehem.Shalmar is currently looking to begin a program in the area so children can find the help they need to learn how to live again.In the meantime, she is urging all to wear blue on Thursday to show their support for the many children whose lives have been shattered by the death of a parent.Marian High School and St. Joseph's Regional Academy will both hold "dress in blue dress down days" to show their support, Shalmar said.To learn more about Children's Grief Awareness Day, visit

www.childrensgriefawarenessday.org.