It took a long time for us to get over the loss of Elliot and to understand and accept what he’d done, but eventually we realized that if we didn’t learn to move on, we would have been torn apart by grief, and all his suffering would have been for nothing. So, to honour him, we have lived a good life together and raised a family. We have a house by the sea. It’s not an elsewhere house, but it’s our home, the place where we raised Elliot’s brother and sisters, and where they now visit with our grandchildren. Each time we see them, every photograph we look at, we cannot help but think of Elliot and the sacrifice he made. None of them, none of the blessings we have in our lives, would have been possible without him. We’re supposed to suffer for our children, but he took such pain for us and he bore it alone. It troubled me for a long time, and I know Beth struggled too. When we’d had three more children and the pain still hadn’t stopped, we realized we needed help to get through it. So we went to a therapist, telling him we’d lost our first son. One of the exercises he had us do was to write a short story about what we’d do if we could have had one more conversation with him.

Beth has kindly allowed me to share hers with you.

The Beach

My dearest Elliot. We meet at the beach. It was always your favourite place. You used to scamper over the sand and jump the waves as a chubby, naked toddler. Later, when you were a little older, you’d spend hours digging the most intricate tunnel networks while your father and I sat in the half-tent and watched sun-kissed families walk by with their matted hair, picnic hampers, and excitable dogs.

It’s the hottest day of the year, but the sun is low now, and soon it will be night. Your father and I are the only ones with the energy to venture out of Aberdyfi. We meet you on the long, empty, unbroken stretch of golden sand where you played as a child, but you’re a young man now. So bright and full of promise. I want to lose myself in your embrace. I long for time to stop and for us to hold each other forever. But we part, and by the glorious sunset that makes everything so perfect, I tell you not to do it.

Please, Elliot. Don’t do this. Let me go.

I look at your father and see the stored years of anguish. I was gone. He’d grieved for me and one day he might have moved on. But you, he never expected to lose you, and I can’t be a substitute for his son. The hole in his heart is vast, and I just don’t fit.

‘Live your life,’ I say. ‘Let me go. Stay with him.’

But then I think about our other children and how they wouldn’t exist but for the choice you made. I think about their every smile and am pained by the idea of a world without them.