My Son Died

“You took your life, as lovers often do, on January 12, 2001. I miss you terribly. I can’t sleep at night. You haunt me. I have nightmares about you. I see you picking up the knife. You hold it delicately in your pale hands and run your finger along the blade. You gaze on in amazement as your fingers, like they have their own mind, run the blade across your wrists. I can almost taste the salty blood falling to the floor. Then you look up directly into me and I wake up screaming. I can’t stand it. Your eyes, the lost all the hope you once held in them.

“The doctor says I’m not grieving properly. I never did trust those damn shrinks. He brings up all these big, complicated words I don’t understand. They have to do something with my ‘grieving’. I’m not grieving, I just miss you. I know that you’re gone, and it’s been so long that I’ve come to accept it. It’s that I miss you so much, and you keep haunting me, what else am I supposed to do?

“I talked to Sandra after you died. At first, I was so angry that I tried to smack her. I tried to grab her hair and pull but they all grabbed me and wouldn’t let me. I kept yelling at her that you loved her and that she should have given you a chance and all that jazz. I told her it was her fault and that you should have killed her instead for being such a witch but they wouldn’t let me touch her. I’ve come to realize that it isn’t really her fault, and that I was sorry for trying to hurt her. She forgave me, saying that after all you had just died and I wasn’t in a right state of mind and stuff. I was going to tell her that I was in a right state of mind, I just hated her down to her open-toed sandals, but I though I best leave it as it was.

“I cry for you every morning. I pray for you every night. I breathe only with the thought in mind that you might not be remembered. I’ve cleaned your room a million times and kept all your pictures up and neat. Sometimes I scare myself though. I wonder what time you said you’d be home today after school, and then I realize you’re not coming back. I keep forgetting, and I’m sorry for that. How can you stop haunting me if I keep forgetting? I just can’t believe that you have left me. I just keep thinking that you can’t possibly be gone.

“I miss you. I love you. Come back to me, please.”