Writing about the Landscape of Loss

By Rachel Dickinson

At 8:00 pm on February 6, 2012, the unthinkable happened. I was sitting in my dining room when I heard a loud noise come from the upstairs. I ran up the stairs and into my 17-year-old son Jack’s bedroom where I found him lying on his bed with a shotgun across his body. I can’t really remember what happened next.

The ensuing decade has been a nightmare for our family – Jack’s three sisters, his father, and me. We have all had bouts of severe depression, anxiety, ange...