Conversations about dying and death are often met with awkward silence, dark humor or exhortations to “be brave and move on”. For 54-year-old Viresh Kumar Sharma, the sage advice people gave after his son died by suicide in Nov 2023 only seemed tone-deaf and insensitive. Sharma’s son was suffering from bipolar disorder and had attempted self-harm before. But nothing prepared the Patna-based banker for the grief ahead.
“Initially, I was in shock and that turned to guilt and pain. He was 23 years old and as parents we had done everything we could, putting in all our money and resources for his treatment,” Sharma says. Therapy helped little. “On the surface, I had gone back to everyday life…. but I had slipped into depression,” he says. This worsened, he says, till he joined an online grief support group for parents who had lost their children. “For the first time, I felt understood. A child’s death is not like any other relative or family member’s death. Only another parent understands what it means.”
