Melissa Etheridge’s beliefs about love helped her get over the death of her son Beckett.
“When I lost my son, I learned my capacity for love,” Etheridge, 62, said in the latest episode Creating space with Hod Kotba podcast.
Beckett died of causes related to opioid addiction on May 13, 2020 at the age of 21. He was the only son of Julie Cypher. Cypher and Etheridge are also parents to a daughter, Bailey.
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“Not only do I love him and miss him\ and to be well, but to love myself enough not to fall into great depression, guilt and shame that so many families lose loved ones to opioid addiction, the shame is just too much,” she continued. is. “It’s huge. So I had to believe that there’s an excess of love in everything. Everything is love.”
The musician said that dealing with her grief is “practice”.
“There can be days when the shadow falls on me. And I catch myself thinking, ‘Oh, what if? What if I did this? What if I had just done that?’ And that doesn’t serve me and causes me pain,” she explained.
Etheridge said that she learned to understand that “he has passed from this physical world” and is “in heaven” and “a place of joy.”
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“To feel him there, I have to be in a joyful space. So when I’m in a dark space, I’m far away from all my loved ones. My job is to find my space again, to love myself, saying, ‘No, no, I did the best I could. I could. And he made his own choices,” she continued. “There are some who check out, and there are those who leave earlier than others. And he couldn’t deal with his life at this point.”
Melissa Etheridge attends the 76th Tony Awards at the United Palace Theater on June 11, 2023.
Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Speaking to PEOPLE in September, Etheridge shared that she thinks of Beckett’s life as “a great time of living and learning.”
“I can look at my son’s death as a great loss, or I can look at it as the time he spent here was a great time of living and learning. He taught me so much and I find great comfort in him in the non-physical,” she said.
She told PEOPLE that writing her book, Talking to My Angelshe helped her be “direct and open” about his death.
“I knew this was no exception, that this was something I wanted to share with those who wanted to know how I got through my son’s death and how I still, every day, have a bright outlook. It’s not easy,” she said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the SAMHSA Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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Source: HIS Education