Without God and the church, I wouldn't have survived my son's suicide

I returned to the Catholic Church in 2010, believing that it was the beginning of my life's "happily ever after." Then my son died by suicide in March 2017.

I first entered the church when I was baptized as a baby. I was raised in Texas by my single mother; I never met my father. As a child, I was sexually abused; and during my teenage years, my trauma was compounded by religious themes I had internalized in my Hispanic American household. Sex before marriage, I was told often, was sinful; and to the mind of a young survivor, this meant I was not good enough for God. I walked away from my faith and would not return for more than 20 years.

Years later, I fell in love with a Catholic man, and began taking RCIA classes in 2009. I expected to take the classes and get the rest of my sacraments with no intention of truly returning to the church — until I met a man named Noe Rocha, who helped me to understand that God loved me, no matter what trauma I experienced. Noe helped me to strengthen my relationship to and understanding of the Eucharist.

I began to engage with church doctrine and to grapple with the church's theology of suffering. I sat with the words of St. Augustine, "You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness." I understood that, while my life had not always been a joyful one, even amid those moments of desolation, God loved me; God walked with me.

Were it not for my return to the church, I would not have survived my son's suicide.

My son Anthony was born when I was 17 years old. I loved him from the first moment I saw him. He was responsible, kind and fun. He loved skateboarding and mustangs. When I returned to the church, Anthony was 16 years old. He understood church teaching and the tenets of our faith, yet when he was 20, he told me he was an atheist. I panicked and argued with him often, attempting to change his mind.

On the morning of his suicide Anthony sat in my room and told me that everything I had taught him about Catholicism was true, and that he wanted to come back to the church. To this day I do not know if that was him saying that so I would not worry about him because he knew what he was planning or if he truly believed it, but I have chosen to believe that God was at work within my son, especially during his final, painful moments.

I did not choose joy after losing Anthony to suicide. I chose grief. I chose to feel my loss. To cry and to refuse to numb my pain with clichés or the idea that Anthony was in a "better place." I turned to the teachings of the church on death, judgment, and heaven and hell. I chose to pray for my son's soul.

So I mourned.