How If Anything Happens I Love You Helps Parents Talk About Grief With Kids
I put on the 12-minute short If Anything Happens I Love You last night around 8:30, while I folded the pile of soccer uniforms and sweatshirts that had been sitting on the couch since Saturday. My 10-year-old Lila was already asleep, my husband was out at a work meeting, and I just wanted something short to watch while I crossed one chore off my never-ending list. By the end, I was sitting on the floor, sobbing into Lila’s faded tie-dye hoodie, my tea getting cold on the coffee table.
I hadn’t thought much about the film before clicking play, but the subject hit close. Last spring, Lila’s best friend Mia’s mom died suddenly in a car crash on her way to work. For two weeks after that, Lila came home, dropped her backpack, closed her bedroom door, and wouldn’t come out for anything but dinner. I knocked every hour or so, offered to get her favorite mint chocolate chip ice cream, suggested we go for a walk to the park, asked over and over if she wanted to talk about what happened. Every time, she yelled back “I’m fine” and I walked away, feeling helpless, like I was doing something wrong.
I bought a couple children’s books about grief, left them on her nightstand. She never opened them. The school counselor sent me a packet of resources, I skimmed the first page and stuffed it in a junk drawer because all the words felt too big, too clinical, for what we were going through. I’d always heard kids bounce back, so I just waited for her to bounce.
Watching the film, which has no dialogue, just two grieving parents moving around their house, shut off from each other, with soft, shadowy glimpses of their daughter who died in a school shooting, I got it. I got what I’d missed back then. I was so focused on getting Lila to talk about her grief, on fixing her sadness, that I didn’t let her just have it. I was scared of the quiet, of the closed door, so I kept intruding, because I couldn’t handle my own discomfort with what had happened. I thought if she didn’t talk about it, she was suppressing it, that it would turn into something worse. But what she needed was for me to be okay with it being unsaid for a while.
Three weeks after Mia’s mom died, we were driving to get pepperoni pizza on a Friday night, and Lila just blurted it out out of nowhere: “Mrs. Carter always put extra gummy bears in Mia’s lunch. Who does that now?” I was so caught off guard, my first instinct was to say something comforting, like “Mia’s dad does a great job, it’s okay” – but for some reason, I didn’t. I just said “That’s such a hard thing to think about. I loved Mrs. Carter too, she always brought those amazing chocolate chip cookies to our bake sale.” And then we just drove the rest of the way in silence. She didn’t say anything else about it that night, and that was okay.
Since watching the short, I’ve been thinking about all the small, concrete things we can do when a kid is hurting that don’t involve forcing them to talk. I work a couple days a week as a para in our local elementary school, so I get to see what works for other kids too. Instead of asking “are you okay?” which almost always gets a “fine” answer, you can say “I’ve been thinking about your grandma this week, too” – it opens the door without pushing. If a kid closes their bedroom door, don’t keep knocking. Just leave their favorite snack on a plate outside the door, no text, no note. If you’re a teacher, keep a few extra coloring pages or a fidget spinner by your desk, and if a kid comes in quiet one day, just say “you can hang out here for five minutes before class if you want, no need to do anything.” You don’t have to have the right words, because most of the time, the kid doesn’t have the right words either.
Last week, Lila and Mia had a sleepover. They were up in Lila’s room, listening to music, and I heard them laughing about something. A little while later, Lila came down to get water, and she said “we were looking at old photos of our 3rd grade field trip. Mrs. Carter was there.” I didn’t say “that’s nice, aren’t you glad you have those memories?” I just said “yeah, that was a fun day. Do you want extra cookies with your water?” She nodded, and went back upstairs. That’s it. That’s all it needed to be.
I still don’t always get it right. Last month, when our neighbor’s 10-year-old golden retriever had to be put down, Lila didn’t say anything for a week, and I almost kept asking her if she was sad. But I stopped myself. I just put the extra dog treat we had leftover from our last visit in an envelope and said we’d drop it off for their kids, and she came with me, and that was that.
The film stuck with me not because it made me cry, but because it reminded me that grief doesn’t need big speeches or fixed endings. It just needs space to exist, alongside all the regular, boring parts of life – the pizza runs, the folded laundry, the sleepovers with old friends. We don’t have to fix it for our kids. We just have to not walk away when it’s there. I still don’t know if I’m doing this right, but these small things seem to work, more often than not. That’s enough for now.
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