A Love Letter to the One We Lost: What Suicide Grief Taught Me and What I Want You to Know

This is not a post I planned to write.

It is one that has lived in me for a while — in the quiet moments, in the weekly flash of his face that appears without warning, in the weight that settles in my chest every time this time of year comes around.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And this May marks an anniversary I carry with a heavy heart.

I am writing this with the blessing of his wife, who loved him fiercely until the very end. I am writing it for everyone who has lost someone to suicide and felt the particular grief that comes with that kind of loss. And I am writing it for him — because he deserves to be remembered, and because the people we love don't stop deserving that just because they are gone.

Who He Was

He came into our lives when I was in elementary school — a Cuban immigrant and cherished family member who came to live with my grandparents until he could stand on his own two feet. What was already a family bond only deepened with time — he became a brother to my mother, a son to my grandparents, an uncle to me, a presence so consistent and so warm that it became impossible to imagine our lives without him.

I remember his lightness. The way he could make a room feel easier just by being in it. His silliness, his playfulness, the way he made you feel genuinely seen and cared for. He had a deep gratitude for our family that he never stopped expressing — and we had a deep gratitude for him.

He went on to build a beautiful life of his own. A wife who was his partner in every sense of the word. A son. A home. A life that from the outside looked like everything he had worked so hard for.

And it was. And he was proud of it. And he loved them deeply.

And then, gradually, something shifted.

When the Light Dims

If you have ever watched someone you love battle depression, you know what it looks like when the light begins to dim.

It is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is subtle — a heaviness behind the eyes, a laugh that doesn't quite reach the same place it used to, a withdrawal so gradual you almost convince yourself you're imagining it.

His wife saw it. She advocated for him tirelessly — for treatment, for support, for every resource available. She never left his side. Her devotion to him during that time was one of the most profound acts of love I have ever witnessed, and I want to say that clearly and on the record: she showed up for him completely.

Sometimes depression wins anyway.

And that is one of the hardest truths there is.

The Guilt I Carry

I want to say something honest here — something I haven't said out loud very often.

In the years before we lost him, life was full. My own world was busy and moving forward and consuming in the way life tends to be when you are building something. I was not absent — but I was not as present as I wish I had been. I did not call as often as I could have. I did not sit with him as much as I would now give anything to do.

And here is the irony that grief has a way of delivering: he is more present in my life now than he was in some of those final years. I think about him every single week without fail. Every week. His face, his laugh, something he said. He has become a quiet constant in my inner world in a way he perhaps wasn't always in my outer one.

I share this because I think many people who have lost someone carry this guilt silently — the I should have called more, the I didn't know, the I was living my life while they were drowning in theirs.

If that is you, I want to say this gently: you were living. That is what he would have wanted for you. And the love you carry for him now, the way he shows up in your thoughts uninvited and insistent — that is not nothing. That is devotion. That is grief doing what grief does — holding onto someone your hands can no longer reach.

What Suicide Grief Feels Like

Losing someone to suicide is its own kind of grief. It carries everything that other losses carry — the shock, the disbelief, the missing — and then it adds layers that are uniquely painful.

There is the surreal quality of it. The way the world keeps moving even though something has just shifted permanently.

There is the transfer of pain — the feeling that the person who was suffering so deeply has now passed that suffering on to the people who loved them. The weight lands somewhere. And now it lives in us.

There is the domino effect — watching a loss ripple outward through a family, a community, a network of people who are each privately trying to make sense of something that resists sense.

And sometimes — and this is important to name — there is anger.

Anger is not a shameful response to suicide loss. It is a human one. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to feel like this was a choice that was made without you, that took something from you, that left you holding a grief you did not ask for.

And it is also true — both things can be true — that the brain in the depths of severe depression does not experience choice the way a healthy brain does. It convinces the person suffering that there is no other way. That the people around them will be better off. That the pain will never end. These are not rational thoughts — they are symptoms of a disease that, at its most severe, can be fatal.

He was not weak. He was sick. And he fought for a long time before he lost.

To Those Who Are Grieving

If you have lost someone to suicide, I want you to know that what you are feeling — all of it, even the parts that feel too complicated or too dark to say out loud — makes sense.

You are allowed to grieve in whatever way your grief arrives. You are allowed to be sad and angry and guilty and confused and heartbroken all in the same moment.

You do not have to make peace with it on any timeline. You do not have to understand it to survive it.

And you do not have to carry it alone. Grief after suicide loss is something therapy was made for — a space to say the unsayable, to process what cannot be processed alone, to find your way back to yourself while still honoring who you lost.

To Anyone Who Is Struggling

If you are reading this and something in it feels familiar from the inside — if you are the one whose light has been dimming — please reach out.

Not because your pain is not real. It is.

But because the version of reality your mind is showing you right now is not the full picture. And because the people who love you are not better off without you. I promise you that.

You can call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — anytime, day or night. You do not have to be in immediate crisis to call. You just have to be struggling.

Please call.

A Final Word to Him

I think about you every week. I don't think that will ever stop and I have made peace with that.

I think about the way you always greeted me — first name and middle name, every single time, without fail. Our little inside joke that never got old. The kind of small thing that somehow becomes the thing you miss most.

I think about what you built — the family you loved, the life you created from nothing, the gratitude you carried so gracefully.

I carry you with me. We all do.

And I hope wherever you are, you finally have the peace that this world couldn't give you.

Con mucho amor, siempre. 🤍

The content of this blog is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and should not be used as a substitute for guidance from a licensed mental health professional. Reading this blog does not create a therapist-client relationship between you and Dr. Karina Luaces.

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or emergency, please call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) or contact your nearest emergency services immediately.

If you have questions about your mental health or are seeking support, I encourage you to reach out to a qualified mental health professional.