I'm not a superhuman after all

I had a hard realization today. Let me start from the beginning though in order to explain the background. After work, I picked Ty up and we went to a fundraiser a friend was holding to raise money for a scholarship program in the name of her daughter who passed away around the same time as Naya (yes, I have made a lot of friends who are also bereaved parents). Ty and I enjoyed a little date night and got home around 8:00. (Dan was still at work.) I opened my car door and our dog Feo was right there in our driveway. This is were the weirdness happened.

At first I was super confused. How the hell did Feo get out?! He is confined to the backyard while we are gone during the day. The gate was latched, he didn't dig a hole and all the doors were locked. We called a friend over and he checked the house to make sure no intruders had gotten in. Everything was there and safe. I am still not quite sure how exactly he got out although I think Ty may have accidentally left the gate open this morning and the wind blew it shut sometime today. Either that, or someone came into our backyard and he got out. All I know is that we were very lucky that our dog is such a wimp that instead of running away, he stayed on our porch waiting for us all day. I don't know what I would have done if something happened to him. Can't go there.

Anyway, Ty was pretty shaken up after this. He was scared that someone had gotten into the house and was waiting here to rob or hurt us. He wouldn't even let me leave the room for a moment while he was doing his homework because he was so scared. He was also afraid to go to bed because he was afraid that someone was going to break in and hurt him during the night. I told him that if I didn't think it was safe for him to be in the house or go to bed, we wouldn't be here because I would never let anything bad happen to him. He told me that I can't always control that and that bad things do happen.

This comment really made me sad. I think every kid realizes someday that their parents can't always save them but it usually happens when they are older. Shit, I am 31 years old and still believe, to a certain extent, that my parents can help "save" me. But he's 10 and because of everything that happened, he already knows how little control I have. I can't tell him that I am going to protect him no matter what - he knows better. After all, I couldn't protect his sister and keep her from dying so how could I protect him? I know that he doesn't blame me or anything like that but it just made me realize how much innocence he lost from everything that happened. His reality is so much different from other kids his age because he realizes that his parents aren't superhuman and can't always be there to save the day. He realizes that his parents are merely humans and not always in complete control and the world is a much scarier place because of this. It sucks and is just another consequence of Naya's death that I have to consider and deal with.