‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning’ Producer on How She Learned to Handle Grief
variety.comJ.J Duncan Two months before my son died, I went on antidepressants. He was in the throes of leukemia, and as his 11th birthday approached, I began experiencing what felt like a surge of electricity throughout my body every time he called my name.
Much of the time he only needed me to hand him the remote, or his Nintendo Switch. However, quite often he was calling out to me for a bloody nose, or nausea, or help to get to the bathroom, or he was in pain.
Whatever the reason, when my boy called out “mama!,” my whole body would zap like a mosquito slamming into a bug light. I was wearing down, and I needed to keep my strength so that I could walk him through the end of his short life.
I talked to my doctor about the jolt, and was prescribed an SSRI antidepressant. Later that fall, my wife and I held our son in our arms as he died.
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