What I Lost When My Son Died (And What I Refuse to Let Go)

When my son died, the world didn’t stop turning—but mine did.

I remember the exact moment I got the call. It was a Sunday, late afternoon. I was folding laundry, thinking about dinner, planning the next week in my head. Then my phone rang, and everything I thought I knew—everything that felt solid—crumbled in seconds.

My son was gone.

He was twenty. Too young to leave this world, too full of life and plans and potential. One moment he was here, and the next, he wasn’t. And just like that, I became a parent with no child to parent.

What I lost when my son died goes beyond what anyone can see or touch. I lost a piece of my soul. I lost the rhythm of my days, the purpose in my steps. I lost the person who made me a mother, who called me “Mom” with a voice that could undo any bad day. I lost the person who taught me patience, who challenged me, who reminded me—every single day—what love could look like when it was raw, messy, and unconditional.

I lost the small things: the texts that came at odd hours, the inside jokes no one else understood, the way he’d leave half-empty coffee cups around the house. I even lost the arguments about curfews and responsibilities—the kind of things that once felt exhausting, and now I’d give anything to have back.

And I lost the future. The man he would have become. The dreams he didn’t get to chase. The family he didn’t get to build. I grieve not only who he was, but who he didn’t get the chance to be.

There’s a silence in the house now, even when it’s full of people. It’s not just the absence of his voice—it’s the absence of his energy, his presence, his laughter. The silence after loss is not empty; it’s heavy. It echoes.

But amid all this, there is something I refuse to let go of.

I refuse to let go of his memory—not the sanitized version people try to package into sympathy, but the real boy, the real man, with all his flaws and brilliance. I refuse to let go of the stories that made him who he was—the time he got lost on his way home from school because he was chasing butterflies, or how he once stayed up all night to finish building a model airplane just because he didn’t want to quit.

I refuse to let go of the love. The love that started the moment I saw two lines on a pregnancy test. The love that grew with each scraped knee, each birthday candle, each tear-filled conversation. The love that didn’t die when he did.

Grief doesn’t end love. If anything, it deepens it. It makes it sharper, more sacred. It turns every memory into something holy, something I hold in trembling hands.

Some people are afraid to mention his name, as if speaking it might hurt me. But silence hurts more. I want to talk about him. I want to remember him out loud. I want the world to know that he lived, that he mattered, that he changed me in ways I’m still discovering.

I also refuse to let go of hope—not the kind that pretends everything is fine, but the kind that allows room for sorrow and still believes in the possibility of healing. Not moving on, but moving forward—with him in my heart.

Hope looks different now. It’s quieter, more fragile. It comes in the form of watching the sunrise and remembering how much he loved mornings. It’s found in a song on the radio, a quote in a book, a dream that feels like a visit. It’s knowing that love, somehow, stretches beyond life and death.

There are still days when I can’t breathe under the weight of this grief. Days when I curl into the ache and let it wash over me. But there are also days when I smile—really smile—because something reminded me of him. And in those moments, I feel him near.

What I lost when my son died is immeasurable. But what I refuse to let go of—the love, the memories, the connection that even death can’t sever—is what keeps me going.

He is gone, but he is still mine.

And I will carry him with me, always.