Dear Mother-in-Law,
In two days it will be 2 years after you died. You died in a way that no one expected, which is often the case. But yours was a little bit different. You were young, you were healthy, you were an RN, you were vibrant. We had just seen you a week before. No one knew how you died. Nothing was obvious. We were told that you were sick the night before, with symptoms of lupus (but nothing new, you had this under control), and you asked your husband to bring you your pills. He took care of you. He woke up to you, cold, and blue. You were not breathing. He tried to resuscitate you, but obviously it was too late from your appearance, from your temperature.
At 5am I woke up to go to the gym, but decided I would rather be with your son, warm under the blankets. I went back to sleep.Thirty minutes later we were woken up to a phone call. It was your husband, his father. He couldn't talk he was so upset. The police officer got on the phone and told your son that his mother was no longer alive. He tried to talk to his Dad but he could barely breathe and still couldn't get any words out. What else was there to say?
Your son was heaving, he couldn't catch his breath the pain was so deep, so shocking. We would go to Houston. We would help his Dad, your Husband. No one could get a hold of your other son. Michael insisted on driving, he needed a distraction, he could not handle being with his thoughts, with any of it. We still couldn't get a hold of your other son. We called 15 times or more. We decided to drive another 30 minutes to go to his apartment, a place we hadn't even been to yet. We figured out how to find him. We knocked on his door several times. He didn't answer. Finally, right before we were close to breaking, he opened the door. He told him, screaming ensued, sobs, more heaving, more tears, more yelling. How could this be? We just saw you. We just talked to you. Your sons were too young to be without their mother.
The rest of the week was a blur. I spent nights with your son watching television with him, massaging him, doing anything to get him to be okay. When he wanted to go to bed at 7pm, without dinner, I was by his side with a glass of whiskey. I would watch whatever he wanted. I wouldn't pressure him into talking about it. This went on for months.
Your son stepped up and made all the plans needed to be made for the funeral. He was everyone's rock. He had to watch in horror when his dad broke down every five minutes. He had to watch his father realize that you were the only one who had the phone numbers of your friends. He had to dig through everything. He had to use his broken Portuguese to tell your family. He was more alone than he had ever been. I have never seen a man more broken. You were his rock. His everything.
I was sad, I was very upset. You were a rock in my life. You inspired me. You helped me become the person I am today. You gave me confidence in the business world. You helped me stand up for myself. You made a son that had made me very happy, that treated me very well.
Since you had been gone, I realized more and more how you were the piece that held everyone together. You were everything to everyone. You were the glue. We were broken without you.
Several months later, we had no explanation of how you died. We thought maybe a blood clot, a heart attack or something else weird and sudden. But the autopsy did not show anything like that. That we were told.
Your son, my husband, saw the death certificate one day while in your office by himself. He went in there to feel close to you. To picture you. And when he was in there, he saw the death certificate. It said death was due to overdose.
He was so shocked by this on so many levels that he didn't even tell me, his wife, for several months. I do not think he could process this.
You were an RN, you knew what to take to take care of yourself, you knew how much to take before you would overdose. This was not a complication or a bad interaction with the wrong drug, it said it was an overdose. I cannot imagine any other explanation other than suicide.
People kept saying at your funeral how it was so nice that you were able to see all your family before you died. That you went to Iowa for Thanksgiving. You saw us for Christmas. You went to Brazil for your birthday. You celebrated your birthday with friends. And now when I think about it, it makes sense. So much sense that you rushed this all together. You were saying goodbye. You knew what you were doing, you had a plan. Months out, you knew what your New Year's resolution would be.
We had no idea. We had no idea you were suffering. We had been worried when between a 3 month visit you had lost 30lbs or more. You said you were on the "your other son's name's diet" because he was stressing you out. You said all you ate was yogurt. I thought maybe you were suffering from Lupus and you didn't want to burden us. I wish we had some idea.
For the year after your death, your son seemed to be handling things, but not talking about it. I figured he didn't have anything to say. It was upsetting. Talking about it wasn't his style. I told him I was there for him, I would be there for him. I was there for him.
A year after your death I think it hit him. He became more and more depressed. He acted out. He cheated on me. He fell out of love with me. He became a different person. I could only see hurt in his eyes. I have never seen another human being so broken. I kept thinking it was me, that perhaps I was not enough for him, that I didn't ask the right questions.
Talking with his Dad, the day I found out he cheated, he said he must be depressed. That his mother suffered from it. That your son needed help. That I need to help him. He became more depressed himself knowing that you were cursed as well with this. Everyone thought you were safe, but your actions, your death, triggered something inside him that slowly tore away everything that he was. You broke him. He didn't even have you to reach out to. To care for him. He didn't even know you ever depressed. Why did you keep that from him?!
No one has told your other son the cause of your death. If they did, I feel he would be in a different place himself. He is happy now, for the most part. He could definitely use a mother's influence however. He currently treats women as sexual objects rather than people. Maybe he knows in some way. He has changed.
Your son, my husband, his life is forever changed.
I am so angry. Even if his depression was not caused by your death, by you killing yourself, he still doesn't have someone to help him through his depression. You were his mother. You had experience with depression, with THIS depression. You knew how to get him to get help. I cannot help him in the same way a mother can. It is a different dynamic, as it should be.
If you were alive, and you found out what he was doing right now you would have a serious talk with him. I am not sure if you would encourage him to keep trying with me, or to have him focus on himself. That if I wasn't making him happy that maybe he should step away. Either way, I wish he had your guidance. I knew it would be the right advice he needs. The advice that I cannot determine is best for him. I wish he had his mother. I wish he had someone who would tell him it gets better. But he doesn't have you. And he doesn't know it gets better, because his form of depression is probably similar to yours, and it didn't work out well for you.
You would be calling him, at least weekly and asking him how he is. How he really is. You would be the outlet he needs. The voice of reason. The voice of care. The voice of a mother's devotion. You would be the person I want to be with all my heart, but it is not my place. I am not his mother.
I love our son with all my heart. I always will. Even after everything that has happened, I still see him as broken and I want to fix him. But I can't. Only he can help himself, but you sure didn't help him.
Your son is flailing through life. He isn't getting the help he needs. He isn't being the person he should be.
I am angry, I am disappointed, I am so broken over this. I wish you had thought of this before taking those pills. I wish you had just held out. Held out for the lives you created.
You were taken too young. But really, you took yourself away too young.
Perhaps I should blame the depression, but you were always bigger than any problem. You should have held on. Your actions changed us all. Why did you let depression win? You were always so strong...
Since you can't be with us anymore in this world, if there is some way you can help your son, please do. He needs you now more than ever. We all do. We never stopped needing you. I wish you knew that 2 years ago. Depression is such an ugly, jarring disease. I wish we had the cure for it. I hope someday we do...
With love, confusion and anger,
Your daughter in law
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