After the Overdose: Living with the Unthinkable

No parent should have to say goodbye this way. The words my child is gone feel impossible to speak, let alone live with.

In the days after losing my son, I moved through life in a fog. People offered words of comfort that I couldn’t quite hear. I smiled when I was supposed to, nodded when I needed to, but inside I was somewhere else—replaying every memory, every missed call, every breath that felt like too much.

Grief after an overdose is complicated. There’s love tangled with pain, sorrow mixed with anger, and a longing that never seems to ease. But slowly, through tears and silence, I began to realize that survival wasn’t about forgetting him—it was about learning how to carry him differently.

I started to see his presence in small things—a song on the radio, a sunset that felt too beautiful to ignore. The ache didn’t vanish, but love began to change form.

If you’re in that unbearable place, please know: you’re not broken beyond repair. You’re just learning to live in a world that no longer makes sense. And somehow, in time, the pieces begin to fit again—around the love that never left.