The Words that hurt me the most..
“I miss my brother.”
Just typing these words brings heat to my face and the feeling of tears to my throat. When Nico says this, I am instantly brought to tears, because I don’t care how much I hurt, it is how much my son hurts that will truly bring the pain of what happened to Travis.
Nico is so emotionally mature, empathetic, and understanding, which will serve him well in his adult life. However, I often struggle with the fact that he has had to learn these qualities at such a young age, that a child of six years old shouldn’t know what it is like to grieve a sibling, to see a parent show true disparity in their loss. Children’s lives at this age should be butterflies, rainbows, bikes, and scratched knees. Not broken hearts.
This conversation happened at the dinner table after a day of school. Something must have triggered him throughout his day, because after stating he missed Travis, he said that everyone at school has a brother or sister and he wishes he had one too. He wanted to know about the man who hit us. In his words:
“Why did that man have to get drunk and hurt us. I hate him.”
Typing this sentence brought me to full tears. I don’t hate the man who killed Travis, I hate what he did to my family, what he did to pain my child for the rest of his life. Nico had so many questions; was he still in jail, why did he do that, can he see what he looks like? Our dynamic is to talk about everything and allow him to have whatever feeling he has. I give him age appropriate answers that make sense to him but don’t bring the severity of sadness that I try to shield him from. I try to guide him through these emotions of understanding them, learning from them, how to process what he has going on inside his mind and heart, towards appreciation, understanding and to surround him with my own empathy of his pain, and my love. I also am very clear to him my appreciation of how much his existence and love helped me through the hardest thing I have ever dealt with. Nico knows love, he knows how to give and receive it, and for that, I am incredibly proud.
Our lives have changed so much over the last six months, and I constantly worry about how it has effected my son. No one knows the best way to raise a kid, we just try our best and learn along side them as we navigate new situations. It has pleasantly surprised me how well our family has done with the new dynamic of Aaron and I being separated and I attribute that to the loss of Travis and how much we all learned during that incredibly emotional and difficult time. Had we not gone through that, our son would not have learned the communication skills that he has, and we, as parents, would not have learned to really listen to our child, to get to the root of the issue, and to show him that he is heard, understood, and in a safe space emotionally with us.
Travis gives us endless gifts, even from above. Without that terrible loss and pain, the lessons we have learned would have never come about. It has made us all better people, especially Aaron and I, to be of more support to both our sons, and to each other, as we more through the ending of our marriage, but the celebration of our family and future ahead. I thank Travis, on a daily basis, for all that he has done for me, for without him I would not be this version of myself; brave, passionate, purposeful, resilient, steadfast….and alive.
With Love,
Alana