On the morning we got the call letting us know there was a mass shooting and our daughter Alaina was still unaccounted for, time fractured into an unrecognizable before and after. In an instant, our lives shifted, and we had to wake up our 14-year-old son, Alex, her younger brother, to start living a whole new normal.
My wife, Hannah, and I walked into his room around 6 a.m. The morning air was quiet, yet heavy with a dread of the truth that we had not yet been officially informed. I stood at the edge of his bed and said, “Hey bud, there has been an accident and we have down to go to Pepperdine.”
He looked up, blinking away sleep. “Is Laina okay?”
With tears in our eyes and breaking our hearts, I replied, “We don’t think so.”
He got out of bed, numbly grabbed some clothes to put in a travel suitcase, and we began our agonizing trek to Thousand Oaks, California, a place that had long been deemed “The Safest City in America.”
At some point during those turbulent days that blurred together in a haze of shock and sorrow, Hannah looked at me and said something that has anchored our parenting ever since: “Our son doesn’t deserve to live in the shadow of his dead sister.”
In the grief journey of a family, there are countless moving parts, and most of them are ever-changing. When I step off the stage after giving a keynote or workshop, people often ask during Q&A or they pull me aside afterward and ask about my son.
Questions like:
- “How is your son doing?”
- “Why would you let him go to college in a foreign country after losing your daughter?”
- “How could you possibly let him out of your sight?”
I find that after losing a child, a parent’s most natural, primal instinct is to protect their surviving children by over-protecting them. Putting them in a bubble. I do not blame anyone for this reaction. Losing a child is heart-wrenching, earth-shattering, and for some, nearly unbearable. Yet, allowing the child who lost a sibling to live as normal a life as possible is the most fair and loving pathway forward for them. Don’t forget they have lost a loved one as well. In Alex case, he went from little brother to only child in an instant.
We had encouraged Alaina to go out to Borderline that night. She was simply being a college student, enjoying her life. We firmly believe she was in the right place, at the right time, when evil walked in. So how, or why, would we deny Alex the right to live his life with that same freedom?
Let’s talk about fear. Hell yes, we would worry every single time he was dropped off at the airport to fly to England for another year of college. And yes, we would be inexplicably, profoundly relieved when his text finally lit up our phones: I landed safely.
That is a normal parental instinct. Especially after already enduring the worst-case scenario, wanting to become hyper-vigilant and keep your surviving child locked away is entirely natural. At the same time, I remember when my own father looked at me with deep concern and asked, “How can you let Alex go overseas to college? It is not safe.”
I chuckled gently and said, “Well, Alaina was right here in California. So what, should Alex just stay locked in his room for the rest of his life?”
Alex at some point even said, “I feel safer in the UK, there are less guns on the street.”
I have personally witnessed some parents who, after losing a child, fundamentally change the way they parent out of sheer, unbridled fear. And that reactive change has severed their relationship with their surviving child to where it can take years to mend: if it ever does. Fear makes us want to build walls, yet walls act as barriers to both danger and connection.
As someone with lived experience walking through the valley of unimaginable loss, I will tell you this: there is no perfect way to do grief. We all carry a unique backstory. The individuals in our lives also carry their own complex histories.
Each time you find yourself cooking dinner with grief, everyone at the table has a different set of ingredients. I can’t hand you a rigid recipe, yet I can tell you this with absolute certainty: if you cook with love, trust, hope, and faith, you will be nourished.
It is a remarkably difficult journey, but you can help your surviving children navigate their own grief by parenting them with love, trust, hope, and faith rather than letting fear steer the ship.
When Alex was preparing to leave for university, we didn’t pretend the world was risk-free. We acknowledged the pain of our past, yet we chose to place our trust in his future. We reminded him: and ourselves: that love is stronger than tragedy.
If you are navigating the intricate waters of parenting a surviving sibling, or if you support a family walking this path, consider these guiding truths: Never compare the surviving child’s grief to the loss of the child who passed. Their pain is different, often complicated by survivor’s guilt, identity shifts, and the burden of holding up their grieving parents.
Allow them to laugh, play, pursue passions, and live fully. Joy does not mean they miss their sibling any less; it means they are honoring the gift of life.
Talk about the sibling who passed without turning the household into a perpetual shrine of mourning. Share stories that make you smile, laugh, and cry. Keep their memory alive as a warm presence in your home, not a haunting shadow.
You cannot shield your children from every storm. Instead of trying to control the uncontrollable, teach them resilience, coping skills, and the quiet power of hope.
Parenting a surviving sibling means walking a tightrope between honoring the past and embracing the future. It means accepting that tears and laughter can sit side by side at the dinner table.
Alaina is forever part of our family fabric. Her spirit, her kindness, and her light continue to guide us every single day. By refusing to let Alex live in her shadow, we didn’t diminish her memory: we magnified it by letting her brother live out loud, with courage, purpose, and grace.
If you are walking a similar path, take a deep breath. Release the guilt of not having all the answers. Lean into your community, lead with empathy, and remember that even in the darkest seasons, hope is a skill you can practice, nurture, and pass down to the ones you love most.
I cannot promise lightning won’t strike twice, yet allowing Alex to live his life couldn’t make me more proud to see the man he has become.
Check out my podcasts, contact information and other blogs at arikhousley.com. Or you can get a copy of my bestselling book Always November: Lessons in Loss, Love and Resilience.