It’s the things you don’t know—can’t know—until you’re in it, that truly tear you apart.
It isn’t the sleepless nights or the inconsolable crying, though those are hard enough on their own. It’s the existential dread that creeps in for the first time in your life. The realization that this person you now love more than anything else will one day die, and that your sole mission is to make sure that doesn’t happen before you do.
I once read a quote, which I learned today came from Elizabeth Stone, that having a child “is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” Since the moment I first read it, I’ve believed it may be the most accurate description of this experience.
For me, it all came much sooner than expected. I was twenty-three days shy of turning sixteen when I went into labor in the early morning hours of November 4th, 1992. Thirteen hours later, I held a baby boy in my arms. Less than twenty-four hours after that, I was discharged from the hospital, tasked with caring for him on my own, without supervision.
The veil didn’t lift the moment my son was born. It fell gradually, pulling away with it the bright armor of invincibility that comes with youth. It frayed the first time he had a fever I couldn’t break. When, at two years old, he told me he’d swallowed a toothpick (he hadn’t). The day his sister—born one year, two months, and nine days after him—fell into the pool as a toddler. Each breathless moment pulled at the gossamer veil that shielded me from the cold, stark reality of the universe: the dark, inevitable expanse that eventually claims us all.
In these moments, I glimpsed my powerlessness. The truth that I could not ensure their survival any more than I could guarantee my own.
Over the years, more of these moments would steal days from my life. As they grew, so did the impact. Daredevil stunts would send my heart racing. But it was the unanswered calls and texts when they weren’t home that did the most. Hours would pass, my pulse pounding until I heard from them. In those moments, I could see the void in the distance and almost couldn’t look away. The worst possibility threatening to become our reality until the phone rang or they walked through the door, turning my petrified fear into the relief of white-hot anger.
“Thank God you’re alive. I’ll kill you myself if you ever do that again.”
My son’s best friend took his own life at fifteen. It rocked us. I became hyper-vigilant while my son spiraled and eventually dropped out of school. My dreams for him collapsed, leaving only one desperate hope: Just stay alive. Please, just stay alive. He promised suicide wasn’t something he’d ever consider. He didn’t want to die.
Years passed. Though my son continued to struggle, that fear faded into the background. My daughter had graduated from high school but was now floundering herself. Nothing I said or did could reach her. She left home and returned to California, where we still had friends and family. My heart ached, and a constant hum of existential fear set in. She was too far away for me to keep watch.
When she returned, it was with a partner and a baby on the way. I was elated to welcome my first grandchild, though a small part of my heart broke for her. She would now come to know the fear of losing the most important thing in the world.
Not long after the baby was born, my son attempted to take his life.
That time, I stood at the edge and stared directly into the void. I felt its pull. I longed for the days when a delayed reply was the most terrifying part of my day. I sat beside his hospital bed, knowing he would survive, but not knowing for how long. The terrible void had found him, and he had tried to leap into it.
We are now years removed from that moment. My son is still here. But the void never fully leaves me. It’s grown—along with my heart—with every grandchild born. They’ve brought endless joy and purpose, but also new reasons to worry. Yet when my son’s first child arrived, one burden was lightened.
“It’s not an option now,” he said. “I have to be here.”
I knew he meant it.
There was a time when my despair was so deep and suffocating that continuing seemed impossible. But I had made a vow—a silent, unbreakable contract the moment I became a parent. Leaving by choice was no longer an option. That promise kept me here. And I recognized that my son had made the same vow when he spoke those words.
I could breathe a little easier.
If we’re lucky, my children will face all the heart-stopping, white-knuckle moments, and I will hear only the summarized versions. The aftermath, when everyone is safe and the adults recount the incident with laughter tinged ever so slightly with the terror of the alternate reality.
I’ve come as close to the void as I ever want to be. But in the end, it’s beyond our control. And oddly, the sorrow of passing this knowledge down to my children has been eased by the arrival of their own. The fear still lingers. The possibilities are more numerous. But now, the burden rests less heavily on me.
At least, on most days.