Amanda Kloots' Son Is Starting To Ask Where His Dad Is, And It's 'Really Hard'
The TV personality’s husband, Nick Cordero, died of COVID-19 complications in 2020.
Two years after his tragic death, Nick Cordero’s widow Amanda Kloots is still processing the loss and, now, the grief of their 3-year-old son, Elvis.
In a new interview with Bobbi Brown on her podcast The Important Things, Kloots, 40, opened up about her grieving process as Elvis comes to understand the absence of his Broadway star father, who died in July 2020 at the age of 41 following complications from COVID-19. Elvis was just 13 months old when Cordero died, but has now started to ask “where his dad is,” Kloots said.
"I feel like that part of grief is going to start happening, where I have to now face his grief after dealing with mine for the last two years," she shared with Brown. "Helping Elvis understand at this young age where dad is, why dad doesn't live with us, what happened to dad. And it's been really, really, really hard."
Kloots said she tells Elvis, "'Dada lives in heaven with Jesus but he's all around us all the time.”
“And we can always talk to him, we can listen to him sing and he's watching over us all the time,’” she added. “That's what I've said so far."
Elvis says he remembers Cordero, but Kloots isn’t sure if they are true memories or recollections of footage and photos she’s shared with him.
“I don't know if that's because we watch so many videos together of Nick or because I talk about Nick so much. But he does, he does say [he remembers him] and I love it. But I wonder,” she said.
Elvis and Amanda on an ice cream date.
September was a very difficult time for Kloots as Elvis started school, and it’s her and Cordero’s anniversary and his birthday month. ("September always feels like a new start to me, feels more to me like a new year than January," she said.)
Elvis has also been very clingy lately and doesn’t want Kloots, who is a co-host of The Talk, to go to work or have babysitters come over for date nights. They co-sleep and even if he feels her get up to go to the bathroom, he “wakes up immediately, ‘mom is gone,’ and there’s a freak out.”
"You feel guilty every time you leave the house and he's crying,” Kloots said, admitting “it's actually been really hard lately."
“I've had a lot of nights where I've cried and [thought] 'This isn't fair' and 'Life isn't fair' and 'I shouldn't be in this position,’” Kloots added.
She tries her best to remain upbeat and positive, but admitted it’s tricky sometimes.
Elvis is a natural born performer.
To that point, she’s been dating, but is “depressed a little about it,” as nothing — or no one, really — seems to be working out. Kloots doesn’t want to be alone, and would love a father figure for Elvis, but the dating scene “isn’t serving her well” right now — so she’s taking a beat.
The Broadway performer explained that being a part of a community, like the one she’s cultivated on social media, makes her feel much better than going through life by herself. For now, that’s what she’s leaning on.
“I really feel like the more we share, the more we learn, and the more it helps us to grow and change and heal,” she said.
For everything she’s been through, Kloots appears to be doing her best and is an inspiration to those facing similar struggles.
