How ‘If Anything Happens I Love You’ Changed How I Talk To My Kids About Grief
I was sitting on my wobbly laundry basket with a broken handle, folding clean socks after the kids went to bed last night, when I clicked on If Anything Happens I Love You. I just wanted something 12 minutes long to wind down before I scrubbed the pasta pot from dinner and fell into bed. I’d seen it pop up on a handful of best short film lists, so I hit play. By the final shot, I was sobbing into a crumpled gray hoodie my 14-year-old left on the couch, half-folded socks scattered across the living room rug.
I didn’t expect that reaction. I cried not just for the two grieving parents in the film, locked in their separate silences after losing their daughter in a school shooting. I cried because I recognized exactly what they were doing: shutting down the conversation about the person they lost to protect everyone around them, and in the process, shutting each other out. Three months ago, our 16-year-old neighbor Jax died in a car crash after school. He’d waited for the bus at the end of our driveway every morning, waved when I pulled out to drop the kids at school, and slipped my 10-year-old extra king-size candy bars every Halloween. He taught my oldest to kickflip last summer behind the community center.
After the funeral, I walked the kids over to drop off a casserole, and I pulled them aside before we knocked and told them “just be polite, don’t ask any questions, don’t bother them with a lot of talk.” When we got home, my 10-year-old asked if we had to put our trampoline away because jumping would be too loud for the Hales next door. I told him we’d just keep it down for a while, give them space. For three months, that’s what we’ve all done: given “space” by not saying Jax’s name, by looking away when we pass their empty driveway in the morning, by changing the subject if my kids mention him. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was protecting them from sadness, and protecting the Hales from more pain.
That’s what the film lays bare, isn’t it? All that space we create to avoid grief doesn’t heal anything. It just pushes the sadness into the corners, where it pulls people apart instead of bringing them together. When I wiped my eyes and put the laundry away that night, I realized I’d been doing exactly what the film’s parents did: I was so scared of saying the wrong thing that I said nothing at all. Not to the Hales, not to my own kids.
The next morning, I was stirring blueberry pancake batter at the stove when the kids sat down fighting over who got the last syrup. I paused, spatula in hand, and just said it: “I watched a short movie last night about a family that lost their kid, and it made me think of Jax. I miss seeing him wave at us every morning.”
The room went quiet for a second. My 14-year-old put her phone down, which never happens at breakfast. She said “I miss him too. I never told you that, because I thought it would make you sad. I still think about him when I skate at the park.” My 10-year-old twisted his juice box and said “I still have that lollipop he gave me for Halloween. It’s in my junk drawer. Is it okay I still keep it?”
That’s the thing no one tells you about talking to kids about grief: you don’t need any special words. I didn’t have a therapy script ready. I just said what I was thinking. I told my 10-year-old of course he could keep the lollipop, there’s no rule about how long you get to keep things that remind you of people you like. When he said it felt unfair that he got a new bike for his birthday and Jax never gets to ride his new dirt bike he got for Christmas, I didn’t say “everything happens for a reason” or “it’s all part of God’s plan.” I just leaned against the table and said “you’re right. That’s so unfair. It hurts really bad to think about that, doesn’t it?” He nodded, and then took a bite of pancake, and that was that. We didn’t sit around crying for an hour. We just said what we felt, and moved on.
That’s the small, concrete change I’ve been testing out lately, that I wish someone had told me before. You don’t have to wait for your kid to bring up grief. Most kids will pick up on your discomfort first, and they won’t bring it up to protect you. Just name the person first, casual, like you would any other person. You don’t have to turn it into a big, formal talk. When you don’t know what to say, just validate the feeling instead of trying to fix it. Phrases like “that sounds so sad” or “I miss them too” work way better than empty platitudes. And it’s okay to cry in front of your kids. I wiped a tear away at the table that morning, and my oldest handed me a napkin. It didn’t break her. It just showed her sadness isn’t something we have to hide from each other.
We still haven’t figured it all out. I still hurry past the Hales’ mailbox sometimes because I don’t know what to say. I still turn down the radio when that loud rap song Jax used to blast comes on, because it makes my chest tight. Last week, I almost told the kids not to play basketball in the driveway because it might be too loud, before I caught myself. But I don’t tell my kids not to say Jax’s name anymore. Last weekend, we blew dandelions by the oak tree where he used to hang out, and my 10-year-old drew a little heart in the dirt for him. It’s not a fix. It doesn’t bring him back. But it doesn’t lock the sadness away in the dark, either. And that’s enough, for now.
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