Through their eyes

Sometimes it can be hard to get our kids to open up about their emotions or talk about the “hard stuff” such as death. Fortunately, my 16, almost 17-year-old daughter shares a good bit with me and has learned to embrace writing down her thoughts as an outlet for emotions. However, my 12, almost 13-year-old son will talk my ear off about whatever game he is “crushing” or how awesome is he doing in football (“No CAP”), but all the times I have asked him if he wants to talk about Bug (my dad) dying he always says, “Nah. I’m good.”

Both my kids are talented writers, so I wasn’t completely shocked at how good the writing was that my son shared with me Thursday night as I was stopped in my tracks at the depth of the content. He wrote the following on his phone and then shared it with me. He asked me if I “could use this for my page.” Meaning he would be okay with me sharing this with all of you—which also made my heart smile. Not only did he use words to express his emotions, like his mom, he is okay with putting it out there for others to read and possibly help someone. Maybe there’s a mom out there wondering how her son is coping with the loss of a grandfather. It might look something like this:

Losing a family member is like breaking a vertebra, depending on how hard that family member influences you, it can paralyze you.

Either way, you don’t function the same. Without a certain family member, it can mess up your view of life, it can make you rethink your choices, make you blame yourself for anything you could have caused or anything you did that caused spending less time with that person.

It can make you rethink your time with them. “Was I mean to them? Did I disrespect them? Why didn’t I spend more time with them? What could I have done better to make them feel happier? Why didn’t I appreciate the time I had with them? Why? “

Certain people whether you know it or not can really influence your life and when they’re gone something is missing.

Wow, huh?

I will continue to encourage everyone, of all ages, to put your words on paper – or type it out on your phone! You might surprise yourself with what you have to say.