A Mother's Grief, A Mother's Love

Sixteen years later, I am still learning that grief is not something to get over, but something to live with.

The Shock and the Silence

When Chris died, my first response was disbelief so complete that it hollowed me out. I couldn’t fathom a world without him. Alongside the disbelief came a crushing weight of guilt. For a long time I carried the fear that God had answered a prayer I had once whispered in exhaustion, that He had taken Chris because I had asked for relief from the chaos and fatigue of his struggles. It was an unbearable thought, and yet it clung to me in the silence after he was gone.

In those early months, my grief sharpened into anger. I couldn’t stand the way the world kept spinning. People gossiped, celebrated birthdays, planned holidays, and worried about things that suddenly felt unbearably small. How dare they carry on when my life had ended? How dare they laugh while I was sinking into an ocean of loss?

Grief silenced me at first. I did not have the words to explain the storm inside me, and even if I had, I doubted anyone would truly understand.

The Weight of Motherhood in Grief

Having known my own battles with deep and dark depression, I understood why Chris made the choice he did. Still, people said things that pierced me. One suggested he was selfish for leaving. But I knew differently. If anything, I was the selfish one, because even though he had found peace, I wanted him back so desperately that I would have pulled him out of his rest just to hold him again.

I was his protector in life, and I remain his protector in death. That doesn’t end with the grave. When people misunderstand him, I feel the need to stand guard over his memory, to make sure he is known for his heart, not just for the way he left this world.

Chris came to me once in a dream, a divine dream that felt like more than imagination. In that dream, I held him close and whispered all the apologies that had haunted me; that I was sorry for the ways I felt I had failed him as his mother. He told me it was okay. He told me he understood. He said God had allowed him to come to me, just for a moment, so that we could have that goodbye. I woke with tears on my face, but also a measure of peace I had not known since his passing.

Mothering him in death is different, but it is still mothering. I take comfort in believing he is at peace, and I long for the day I can see him again. I think of him often, wondering about the life he might have had — marriage, children, the joy of building his own family. That imagining is part of my connection to him, a way of continuing to carry him forward even as I live with the ache of his absence.

Remembering Him Beyond the Ending

Chris was warm and generous with his heart. He wanted to be everybody’s friend, and he wasn’t afraid to stand up to bullies. Once, in high school, he defended the smaller, more timid kids by fighting the boy who wouldn’t leave them alone. It landed him in juvenile detention for three days. Later, he apologized to that same boy because he felt guilty for hurting him. That was Chris, fierce in protection, tender in conscience.

He struggled with depression, and his ADHD could make him restless, sometimes even maddening in the way he bounced from one thought or impulse to another. But it was impossible to stay angry at him for long. His heart was too big, his grin too disarming.

One afternoon he stole my motorcycle and took it on a joy ride. I should have been furious, but when I saw him with the wind in his hair and that light in his eyes, I understood. Riding gave him a fleeting sense of peace, as if the roar of the engine and the rush of air could drown out the noise of his inner battles.

Living With the Loss of Chris

Losing my son to suicide has given me moments of deep depression, times when I wished I were dead too. Grief carries a weight unlike anything else, a heaviness that settles into the body and spirit and never truly leaves.

But I also have four grown children, ten grandchildren, and a husband who all mean the world to me. With their love and encouragement, and with the help of therapy, I have learned to keep putting one foot in front of the other. They are my reason to keep going, the steady reminders that my life still matters.

For much of my life, I worried about whether I would ever become Somebody important. After Chris’s death, I came to realize that I already am. I am Somebody to my family and friends, to the people who need me. I am Somebody when I choose kindness over judgment, even when others are unkind. We never know what another person has endured, and we all deserve to be met with compassion.

This loss has stripped away what is trivial. I no longer waste energy on how my hair looks, what others think of me, or whether my house is immaculate. None of those things matter in the grand scheme of life. What matters is love. What matters is kindness.

Grief has changed me. Sixteen years have passed, and I still grieve. Some say I should be over it by now, but grief doesn’t work that way. It takes as long as it takes. Healing has come slowly, not by erasing the pain, but by learning to live with it, by finding meaning in the love that remains.

Grief may never loosen its hold, but neither does love, and it is love that keeps me walking forward.