Ones to Live For

Lessons in Loss, Love and Resilience

It wasn’t long after Alaina’s murder that Hannah and I were having a conversation. She looked over at me and said, “Alex does not deserve to live in the shadow of his dead sister!”

While the words to some may be hard to swallow, it was an eye-opening moment. She was right. Our son was 14 when Alaina passed, he lost his sister. We needed to live for him, yet don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t as if we just tried to forget about Alaina and move on. In fact, I never use the term “move on!” We move forward with a new part of our story, we will never move on, at least I won’t.

So now we move forward as a couple and with Alex, and we look to give him all the support we would’ve if he wasn’t a sole surviving child. He give him the support of our child. Now he’s 21 and living abroad going to University in UK. There have been ups and downs, yet in those moments, ALL OF THEM, we support and check in. Many have asked how we let him go so far, yet we believe it is their decision to go and we support those decisions. Alaina chose Pepperdine. She chose to go out to Borderline that night to go line dancing. We encouraged her to get out and not be such a nerd. She was doing exactly what she wanted.

When Alex was dealing with a long injury spell and not able to play soccer, it was difficult for him. He is abroad in college and stuck. The skies are gray and gloomy many days and he’s sitting around in a boot with a broken foot. In American Universities there are many activities to do, over there, it is not the same. He has a great group of friends and teammates, yet they leave daily to go play and train and he can’t. All we can do is listen and offer support.

Whether you are dealing with grief or loss of a loved one, trying to put a bubble around the surviving child might make you feel better in fear of losing another. Yet, they deserve to live and be loved. While protection might feel like love, there will be a time you must let them step outside the bubble for themselves. The bubble you create is one of your own.

Woke up early and just had these thoughts to get in writing. I couldn’t resist using one of my favorite pictures of the sibling innocence ha. Subscribe for my upcoming articles and podcast with others stories of Loss, Love and Resilience. Excited I have the front cover designed for the book, Always November.