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Hello. I'm new to this site, but I have found several of the topics and postings very helpful. I lost my 3 year old son in a tragic accident 2 months ago on July 12th. It has been a devastating time for my family and me. We are all grieving in different ways, so that makes it even harder. I do go to grief counseling and a compassionate friends group for parents who have lost children. I guess I'm looking for anyone else who has been in my similar situation, and experienced a sudden accidental death of their completely healthy, vibrant child, and how you have been able to pick up the pieces and go on with your life, when that child was your life. I was a single stay at home mom and he was my everything.

I have looked around but don't see a current thread on suicide loss. I lost my 15 year old son to suicide in January 2015. I read a lot about it because I'm so unfamiliar with the subject and want to understand the thoughts and feelings of a person considering suicide. My son Matthew kept it all inside, and we have no idea what his internal thoughts were leading up to this horrible surprise. Our lives are forever changed and will always be different, I am learning, and I am trying to accept this fact. I did read a few good books and would love to know if any of you have read any books (not articles) that actually helped in your understanding of suicide. I've read: "My son, My son" by Iris Bolton (EXCELLENT) Understanding Your Suicide Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart by Wolfelt PhD, Alan D.(EXCELLENT) Dying to Be Free: A Healing Guide for Families After a Suicide by Cobain, Beverly (Kurt Cobain's aunt) (BEST FOR UNDERSTANDING WHAT GOES ON IN THEIR MINDS) The Forgotten Mourners: Sibling Survivors of Suicide by "John's sister" (GREAT FOR SIBLINGS AND PARENTS) Healing the Adult Sibling's Grieving Heart: 100 Practical Ideas After Your Brother or Sister Dies (Healing Your Grieving Heart series) by Wolfelt PhD, Alan D. (REPETITIVE AND SIMPLE, DISLIKED)

March 16, 2012 was the day my world stopped, the day I had to become an adult and the day where my life took a drastic turn. I vaguely remember the smell of the bleach in the hospital room and the eery silence that filled the room as I gave birth to my deceased daughter. As I look back now, sometimes I find it surreal and above all bewildered that this actually happened to me. Never should a parent have to bury their child, but I was only 20-years-old. I was a child losing a child. Although my pregnancy wasn't planned, that doesn't mean that I still wasn't extremely attached to the idea of becoming a parent. My daughter Parkar didn’t get the chance to grace the world with her presence; she was taken away from me at only a mere 5 months along in the pregnancy. When we were told that she had a severe form of Spina Bifida and wouldn’t live to make it full-term, my life partially ended on that day. Devastation doesn’t even begin to describe the gut-wrenching emotions that swirled in my head and heart. At the time, I was so distraught that I honestly felt like I was dying. To be as sad as I was, I probably needed some sort of medical help for how deep of a depression that I sunk into. We found out on March 9, 2012 that we were having a little girl and on March 16, 2012 found ourselves in the hospital having to let her go. And for several months following, I suffered immensely, to the point where my life became a disoriented mess. One of the main problems was that I was at an awkward age where people didn't know how to treat me or what to say. I wasn't a child but I wasn't really an adult so most people ignored Parkar's death and acted as if it didn't happen. The second problem was that I had completely lost control of myself, my relationship, my friendships and everything in between. Several months down the road, I woke up in the middle of the night and almost had what you could call an epiphany. I didn't want this life of suffering anymore. I knew that I needed to change my life and turn my grief and hurt into something more positive. So the very next day, that is just what I did. I started to enact a plan of attack on how to get my life back on track. And with tiny baby steps I transformed my life. I sincerely believe that my daughter's death happened for me to help other parents. I think Parkar's death happened so I could learn to be a voice for young parents that are stuck in a rut. Now at the age of 23, I have devoted the last couple years of my life to helping people better understand what loss means for people in their 20s and 30s. ​Perhaps the greatest words of wisdom that I can provide, is that despite how horrible your child's death is, you are in fact strong enough to get through it. On days where you don't feel like going on and moving forward, you have the answers within yourself to heal, find love and real happiness again. Parkar's death was the greatest tragedy of my life, but somehow, someway I got through it.

It was about three weeks since Lily’s death and we were in Wanaka, visiting my brother and his partner, leaving my sister back in Auckland. One night while I was there, I woke up after having a dream of Lily. In the dream Lily simply said, “Tell Lou I’m sorry I wasn’t there”. So not thinking much of it, I was prompted to call my sister, Louise. I asked her how she was and she said she was fine, although she said she had been to a funeral the previous day. She had managed to get through the service with dry eyes until the end when someone got up and read the very same poem that she, my sister, had read for Lily at her funeral, three weeks earlier. At this point she lost it and could hold back the tears no longer. Lily had obviously been with her at this funeral, trying to let her know that she was still there with her. Lots of love, Erica The poem read: “Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room I am I and you are you, whatever we were to each other That we are still, call me by my old familiar name Speak to me in the easy way you always used Put no difference into your tone Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow Laugh as we always laughed At the little jokes we always enjoyed together Play, smile, think of me, pray for me Let my name be ever the household word that it always was Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was There is absolute unbroken continuity What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you for an interval somewhere very near Just around the corner, All is well. Nothing is past; nothing is lost One brief moment and all will be as it was before How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!” by Canon Henry Scott-Holland