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.