10 years have passed and the grief hasn't lessened for Travolta and his wife, who paid a proper tribute to their late oldest son this year.
It's never easy for parents who've lost a child. Their precious child was taken away from them... It's not right; it's not natural. Parents aren't biologically meant to outlive their children and when they do, the loss rips them apart.
For actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston, who've been married since 1991, the one thing they did not expect was to say goodbye to their eldest child only 16 years after he was born. Jett Travolta passed away 5th January 2009, months before his 17th birthday, after he suffered a seizure. Unfortunately, he hit his head on a bathtub during a family vacation at their home on Grand Bahama Island, reported People. According to E Online, authorities and paramedics tried to revive him but he was pronounced dead at Rand Memorial Hospital.
The former "Grease" actor opened up about his son's death in January 2019 and told Us Weekly, according to USA Today that it was "the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life." Jett left behind his devastated parents and his little sister, Ella Bleu, who is now 19 years old.
Heartbroken, the couple kept their grief private until April 6th when Preston, 56, and Travolta, 65, took to Instagram to pay tribute to their beloved son just days before what would have been his 27th birthday. She posted a picture of her and her husband sharing a sweet kiss with their son.
“To my sweet love, Jett… you are in our hearts forever,” Preston wrote in the caption. But it wasn't just that touching message she wanted to convey. Though she never spoke much about her son, she opened up about his autism in November 2012 while on an episode of The Doctors.
“[Jett] was autistic. He had seizures and when he was very young, he had Kawasaki Syndrome,” Preston said at the time. In tribute to that fact as well, in her post, she said, “I send love to all of the beautiful autistic children and the wonderful people who love them. May we all shine and grant love and respect to children with special needs."
But it wasn't easy for them to process the pain of Jett's loss. They had lost a son, and their little girl, Ella, had lost her older brother. However, the year after his passing, Travolta and Preston welcomed another son, Benjamin Hunter.
The actor says that having Ben come into their life helped them through the grief. “Certainly having little Ben has been a beautiful kind of glue for us to rebond after a tremendous loss,” he said. “He’s given the house a renewed spirit and purpose,” Travolta told People in 2011.
In 2012, Travolta also revealed to BBC Breakfast at the time that he was so overwhelmed by his son’s death that there was a point when he gave serious thought to walking away from his acting career. He said, "I lost my son a few years ago and I had been having quite a time of that and after three years getting a lot of support from my church and a lot of support from people, fans, family I decided that it was OK to go back to work because I’d even thought of retiring at one point because it felt like too much."
Well, may Jett Travolta rest in peace as his family moves on knowing he is well and happy where he is. He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten.
References:
https://people.com/movies/john-travolta-kelly-preston-how-they-healed-after-losing-son/
