After my son Charles died by suicide, I had to learn to accept the loss –a brutal and agonizing process. I wondered where all that love I had for my child was going to go since he was no longer with me as a living being.
Somehow I thought I would redistribute that love elsewhere. I do share it more now as a salve to the ache that loss has left. But I have never stopped loving or talking to Charles, which if you saw me, would look a lot like I was talking to the air.
I’ve developed a different kind of relationship with my youngest child since his death. I made the effort to understand depression, addiction and suicide. And after reading his music and his messages, I got to know Charles from a different point of view and better than I had ever known him while he was alive. That was difficult to accept.
I would never have thought I could have a relationship with someone who had died. Of course it’s different and I will always grieve his death.
But now when I laugh, I feel him laughing with me. When I’m on stage talking about him, I feel him next to me. That love I have for my child won’t ever stop– until my own heart does.
You are so right Anne Moss. The love lives on. A relationship continues. The adjustment is agonizing. All this.