On Restraint: Writing About Grief After Suicide

By Rita Malenczyk

My son Nick died by suicide four years ago; I’ve written and published several personal essays and poems about his death. One essay, about me trying to recover from the loss while teaching and writing a scholarly article (I’m an English professor), moves back and forth between my memories of Nick when he was alive and my actions in the present. The descriptions of my actions, Nick’s death, and my memories of him are not outwardly emotional, though I do occasionally mentio...