My Son

I want to tell you of my loss. My son, my most favorite person in the whole world, commited suicide. Though it's been three years(1-1-1997) it feels like a lifetime, and then sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday that he was with me. He was here but now he's gone. I don't understand why he left me (I know he loved me). I feel like I failed him. How could he leave me? I miss him so much. So much that it's hard to think about him, to remember how he was. How he made me laugh. He could make me laugh when I was mad at him.I loved him from the beginning. I'll love him until my end. But I feel so sad that he's gone.All I have left now are memories, and the people who loved him,. He was so loved, everyone was drawn to him. But he didn't feel he could go on. To us senseless, to him the only way out. How could he not know that those of us he left behind would have done anything we could do to make his pain go away .It's so hard to keep living like nothing has changed, but everything has. This has exploded into my life like nothing ever hasl My whole life has changed. Turned upside down, Part of me has been taken away, never to be returned. I keep thinking if he knew how much he hurt me he would never have done what he did. I know he was thinking of me in his end, he left me a note telling me he loved me, but I don't think he could really understand the impact his death would have on me. I wish I could go back and change things. Now I can't even celebrate New Years Eve, or New Years Day. That is the day he left. I feel like if I celebrate, it would be like celebrating another year without him. I feel like I would be betraying him, betraying myself. Instead, his friends come over and we remember him. We laugh at remembered antics, or how he would stick up for the girls, and wouldn't let anyone bother them. Or how he would take punishment rather than "rat on a friend". Or that he could tell stories about his past, and remember things even I couldn't. He's not here anymore to help me remember. How do I ever tell the son he never knew he had that his daddy took his own life? David's son calls me gammy now. He is my joy. I feel endless joy that even though he didn't know it, he left me a special gift. Anthony is so much more special to me because he is my son's son. Every now and then I am so afraid I will loose him too. Sometimes I'm afraid to love him too much, the loss would be too great to bear. I miss my son so much, it's hard to convey the emotion in words. When he was little I used to tell him he hurt me in my heart, to make him understand that to do a certain thing was wrong. But life goes on, so I have to put my hurt away. There are others who need me. Others who love me. So I tuck it all inside so no one can see it, and I pretend it doesn't hurt so much, all the time, and I go on with my life, and try to make sense of the domino effects. Some good, some bad. I try to wonder if I would give all I have away if only I could have my son back. But that choice will never be given to me, so I don't have to answer. Life goes on. (It took me a long time to be able to say that.) I still can't say "he's dead". I have to say "he died". Even writing it now hurts me to my core, I don't even want to read the words. They're ugly to me. So much in my life has changed. The way I look at things. How I react. Some things are less important, some things more important. Even though I know I'm wrong, I can't help feeling that I failed him as his mother. I wonder what I could have done different, what I could have changed. I realize it's not my fault, but I feel partly to blame. This is a feeling that after three years I'm still dealing with. So, if you're reading this because you feel alone and that no one will miss you if you take your own life, think again. Suicide is a terrible thing and it affects so many people in so many ways, and you should never do this to all the people who love you. Go talk to someone, anyone. Don't do it. You will destroy someone's heart.

David Tela & his Mom