Sharing Our Calmness

We’re all processing our grief differently. Turns out, when kids are sad, they don’t say, “I’m feeling sad right now.” They’re more likely to scream and stomp and withdrawal and control and wet the bed and complain and...well, you get the point.

And me, I feel weaker than usual, less able to help them. We explain co-regulation in our home as “sharing your calmness,” and I feel so weak with sadness that I don’t have much calmness to share.

After a day of feeling like I just didn’t have anything to give these kids who need so much from me, I climbed into bed and pulled the blanket over my head. Behind me came my youngest girl. She crawled under the blanket, asked me (for the 50th time today) how I was feeling and laid next to me. For an hour, I stroked her hair and cuddled into her, absorbed her sweet smiles and felt her “sharing her calmness” with me.

And I felt it. That I don’t need to try to muster the strength to carry them all through this. That—actually—together, as a family, we’ll carry each other.