My son's father, my ex-husband and my first love. We went through so much together, grew up together and shared our son together. I knew he was broken and I always hoped I could have saved him. I remember his first suicide attempt was when he was between 8-10 years old. It seemed to be a family joke because he tried to overdose on his mother's birth control pills. That always broke my heart to think about that. We met when I was 15 and he was 18. He was going to go into the army after being in foster care. I think back to the different crossroads in his life. If he had only stayed in the army but we were desperate teenagers in love. We dated for 7 years and had typical drama and we were not equipped with skills to be kind to each other or handle our conflict well. Breaking up and making up. About four years into the relationship, we broke up and he had a serious suicide attempt, hospitalized and yet we still couldn't stay away from each other. He followed me to college and after graduation had we not gotten pregnant I think our relationship would have died a natural death as we had begun to grow in different directions. We married and tried to make a life work. We had a beautiful son. After another seven years, we had too many bad patterns, lost trust and we were unable to continue together. After the initial pain of divorce and moving on, we were able to be parents together. My life was good but he always seemed to struggle. During that economic down turn, his job went away and he couldn't get another one. He was in such a bad spot, is so much pain. I hoped that if he had a little respite from the world and was around people, things might get better. I let him live with us and I wish I would have told him he couldn't drink in my house, that probably wouldn't have changed things but you always have those "if only..." thoughts. It started out good, like a happy family but then when things didn't get better, he was angry, resentful and isolated himself. He didn't follow through with his commitments that we had made for him to stay there. Thanksgiving 2012, my son and I were visiting my sister and my son went back home early. I remember him telling me his Dad was acting weird. When I returned his father told me he had tried to kill himself in my home. I asked him if he wanted me to help get him some help and he did. He really wanted some help. While he was in the hospital I had to tell him he couldn't come back, I couldn't risk him trying to kill himself in my house with our son there to witness it. I had stress at work, stress at home and stress in my relationship. I had to save myself and stop some of the stress. I think he understood, I still would be there and talk with him and tell him how important he was to me. He eventually was living with his mother and trying to get on his feet but he was angry and sad. He would hang up on me (his usual pattern when he was isolating) when I tried to talk to him. I asked him to get his stuff and he wouldn't, months and months of this. I'll never forget that Sunday in July when his sister called and told me he was gone. I needed to get a hold of my son quickly because the medical examiner was going to call him and tell him. I absolutely knew that my 21 year old son needed to hear the news from a family member and in person, not from stranger over the phone. That was one of the worst things I ever had to do was to tell my precious son that his father was gone. I was in shock but I needed to cast that aside to focus on our son. Our son was in shock and there was nothing I could do to take away his pain. He didn't really want to deal with it but I went up to be with his Dad's family. My son stayed in his room playing video games that week while we made the arrangements. My sister who is a minster officiated the service. I told my son that he needed to be at the service no matter what, and he should do whatever it took to get through it. I hoped he would sit by me but that didn't matter as long as he was there. Just before the end of the service, he went up in front of the crowd and said "I know my Dad loved me but I don't think he thought he was loved but I can see by everyone who is here that he was loved" hearing that I believed he would be ok. I'm so sad that my son's father died. I'm so angry he died. I'm so heartbroken that he didn't get a better life. He really needed to be there for our son and I needed him there for our son. I wanted him to be stronger so he could have survived. I'm so sad that he would never get to experience what our son will evolve to be in his life. I'm sad that if our son ever marries and has children that we have to deal with his absence. I still needed him in my life. My son struggled and now also deals with depression and anxiety. I worry all the time and wish I could be a helicopter mother but he won't let me. My beloved son as always been my north star and ever since his birth, he's been my priority. My biggest fear (and research shows that he has an increased chance) is that he will also die by suicide. I try not to think about it but I believe I could handle just about anything except that. I would LOVE for someone to help me let that fear go.... The fear is harder to deal with because I also have catastrophic thinking/ptsd, my Dad was killed in an accident in 2007, my now ex-partner's son also committed suicide in 2008. It's been a lot and I've done a lot of work around my losses and grief. I know that I'm strong and resilient and have faced grief but I just don't know if I could handle losing my son. My son has experienced all the same losses but at a much younger age and he has been resistant to get help to work through his grief. I know I have to let him do his work on his own time but I sure wish I could help him so I don't have to bury him too.
