The Travolta Family

Recently there has been a lot of death in the news. Not just due to the war, but celebrities have been touched by the hand of death as well. This past fall, singer Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew were brutally murdered; I’m sure it’s been horrible for her and she has my deepest sympathies. The last week, John Travolta and Kelly Preston lost their beloved son Jett.

My heart truly goes out to John Travolta and his wife on the loss of their child. I know from personal experience how difficult that is to deal with. Sixteen years ago, my sister’s youngest son died as the result of a car accident, and it was a horrible experience for the entire family. When a spouse dies you’re called a widow or widower; when your parents die you’re referred to as an orphan. But, there’s no name for a parent or family in which a child has died. That fact alone suggests how unnatural and unacceptable the nature of a child’s death is. It remains unnamed because the very thought of it is incomprehensible. Yet when it occurs, each minute is filled with the deepest pain. The pain is physical; it’s as if your heart has been torn out of your chest and you have a gaping, open wound. Nothing makes sense, and the feeling of loss, loneliness and bewilderment is overwhelming.

Grief becomes integrated into your lives. It makes you question everything you think or feel. You don’t understand why this horrific thing has happened, and you know you’ll never been the same because you’ve been touched by this nightmare. While they’re grieving, families learn a new “normal” along the way. Despite the pain, the human spirit allows us to grieve and move forward into the sunlight, given enough time. It’s not an immediate thing, but something that happens slowly as each day goes by. While we can never fully recover from the loss of a child, we manage somehow to get through one day and then the next, and then the next; but we never, ever forget. When memories are all a family have to hold on to, you cherish them with a fervency that you never thought possible. They say time is a great healer. In many ways it is, in terms of the fact that over the course of years, the rawness of it fades. You still hurt, but you hurt in a different way than when it’s fresh and new.

I hope the Travolta’s hold on to the precious memories of their son, and eventually can find some comfort in the joy he brought to their lives for the short time he was here. That will, I hope, someday bring them to a place where acceptance of their loss will carry them through their pain. It won’t be quick and it won’t be easy, but it will eventually happen. In the meanwhile, as someone who understands what they’re going through at this time, I send peace and love their way, and I’ll remember them in my prayers.