Thursday

A lot of times when something crappy happens to a kid, we say something along the lines of "he'll get over it, he's just little" or "she won't even remember this" or "kids bounce back so fast"

Which is half true.  He probably will get over it, provided he has the support he needs.  And she probably won't remember the facts because her higher, logical brain isn't very developed.  And kids do seem to bounce back fast, because one of the signs of not bouncing back?  Is looking on the surface like they've bounced back. 

But all that bad stuff gets stored down there in the bottom brain.  The very bottom part- where we eat sleep trust breathe and (eventually) do sexy with.  And the middle part- where we love emote touch and relate to one another.  When something bad happens to us when we are little (and even when we are big) our eat sleep trust breathe sexy love emote touch relate signals get scrambled up and we don't really act in healthy ways around eating sleeping trusting breathing sexing loving emoting touching and relating anymore.

And we don't know why we do the things we are doing.
Because the part of our brain that stores facts and provides us with a reliable time-space continuum and lets us think through things logically isn't fully developed when we are kids and it shuts down during traumatic events at any age.  That's why it's hard for us to reliably recount events when we've been in an accident or victimized.
Our brains will work hard to fill in the gaps by making up details and specifics.  That's why two people who have been in an accident or victimized together just can't get their stories to jive.

Jive.  That's a clinical term.

Also, kids haven't been alive for very long.  They might not realize that the bad thing that happened (or worse, keeps happening) isn't "normal".  They  might think it's just a part of growing up. A part of life. Their little worlds can be shaken up so badly, and they don't have the sort of life experience to know that things can and probably will get better.

That life is a series of ups and downs.
To them, life might be a series of ups and one big down that will seemingly stay that way forever and ever.

Hopelessness and helplessness aren't very good feelings.

***

Jacob has been alive for about 5 and a half years now.  The first six months he was very busy being a baby, and wasn't aware of much of anything outside of himself.  So let's round to five.
In the past year, or for about 20% of his life we have had a death in the family once every sixish months.  In October my grandmother passed.  In March, Dave's father.  And the other day, Dave's grandfather.  Jacob knew my grandmother, but mostly through stories and pictures and pieced memories of short visits to the nursing home.  He was very close with his grandfather, and quite close with his great-grand dad.
Oh, and the dog.  How could I forget?  Dave's parents' dog died last fall too.  Which was a HUGE blow to Jake, because it was the first thing he has ever loved and lost.  He still cries over that dog.  He calls Freckle's death his "practice death" because it "taught him how to lose someone".

So four deaths in one year's time.

He said to me, "I know I'm getting older because people keep dying".
He probably heard that somewhere.  An adult conversation that wasn't meant for him.

Little pitchers.

I said to him that in my whole life I have never lost as much as we had this past year.
This isn't normal.

Things will get better.
Less sad.
Less stress.
Less sickness.
Less loss.

We're doing our best to get him through it.  Talking.  Listening.  Watching.
He seems to be doing pretty well.
He's worried that I'm going to die too soon.
Worried that his other grandparents are dying.
Wondering what it feels like to die.
Talking about where we go.
How we go.

Last night he reached his hands up to the night sky and said, "I need a minute before we get in the car.  I'm touching the souls of the people who I love that are gone".

I gave him two minutes.