Losing a child brings a pain so deep and dark that at times there seems no way out, no hope, no reason to continue living. During the first year after Nicolas died, I wrestled with thoughts of my own death, for the first time wishing the airplane I was on would crash instead of land safely, for the first time more afraid to live than die. During those darkest moments, I saw no possibility of joy or purpose in my life and simply did not want to go on. I wish I could say I’m still here because I tapped some unknown and unexpected well of strength to push through those dark days. In reality, it is Nicolas’ little brother, Christopher, who saved my life. I became pregnant with Christopher three months after Nicolas died, which coincided with the lowest point of my grief. My pregnancy did not give me hope for the future as hope was an emotion I was incapable of feeling at that time. But it did give me a sense of responsibility and a sort of robotic reflex to continue eating, sleeping, working, living.

Although a somewhat taboo subject, even among parents who have lost children, I imagine most bereaved mothers and fathers have contemplated suicide after burying a son or daughter. I read today about a couple who decided this world held nothing for them without their only child. Their beautiful boy, Sam, suffered two tragedies in his short life. He survived the first, a car accident at one year old that severed his spine and paralyzed him from the neck down, but succumbed to the second — a sudden massive bacterial meningitis infection that took his life on May 29, 2009, four years later. The TimesOnline reports the bodies of Neil and Kazumi Puttick were found at the foot of Beachy Head in Sussex, England, with two rucksacks: one contained a toy tractor and teddy bears and the other little Sam’s body.

I am not a grief counselor or a psychologist or even an especially perceptive person and cannot comment on how or why some parents are able to fight the overpowering urge to join their children in death while others cannot. But I feel nothing but empathy and understanding for the parent who makes that fatal choice, nothing but a sadness for the unbearable hurt that drove them to pull the trigger or, as in Neil and Kazumi’s case, to jump off the cliff. There is no selfishness in this act, as some people believe of suicide — only a desperate pain and hopelessness.

For a long time after Nicolas was born and died, I could not separate the love I felt for my son from the pain I felt at his death. I was consumed equally with these emotions, making it impossible to understand whether I was mourning the life Nicolas lost or celebrating the life he had. Love and grief did not exist as separate but equal entities in me, like oil and water, but were one and the same. They did not compete with each other for space but subsisted as one being. Like any new parent, I fell so deeply in love with Nicolas the moment I saw him and held his still warm body in my arms. Yes, I loved Nicolas before he was born, but that love solidified into form in Nicolas. Knowing he was already dead, knowing I would go home without him, did not undermine my love for Nicolas. The grief and pain simply joined the love and joy to become one powerful, crushing emotion.

More than a year after my little boy died — with much of the hard work of fresh grief behind me, I realized I was afraid to let go of the pain for fear of losing Nicolas entirely. All I had known of Nicolas since his birth was grief and hurt. I did not see him open his eyes; I did not hear his first breath or newborn cry. I did not have the chance to create joyful memories with Nicolas because he was dead before I first held him in my arms. If I put the grief away, if I lay down the burden I carried for so long, would I also let go of the love? It was a long struggle, a tedious effort, to unravel the pain from the love, the grief from the joy. I came to understand that, despite his unexpected death, despite the trauma of birthing a full-term, dead baby, despite the pain of outliving my child — Nicolas was still the first, great blessing of my life. While I will always wish Nicolas had lived, while I will always mourn the life he should have had, I will forever be grateful to have known him at all — to have been his mother for even a short time.

I read today a letter another mama wrote about her first-born son, who died two days after his birth from labor complications. She said she tries to hold her babe in love rather than in grief. Such a beautiful and wise sentiment. Three years after Nicolas’ death, I am able to process the pain and joy as independent emotions — I am finally able to hold my sweet son in a love unburdened by grief.