‘He was gone. I couldn’t believe my baby’s gone’
A California mother has told the story of her son who died by suicide after becoming guilt-ridden following the death of his father who died from covid.
The 37-year-old mother, Stephanie Reyes, said that her whole family had caught the virus in August last year. However, her husband Anthony, 46, died due to covid-related complications a month later.
Stephanie’s son, 17-year-old Anthony Reyes Junior, held himself responsible for his father’s death and had begged to see him before he passed away.
Junior had insisted that his family attend his school’s pep rally and felt this led to his father’s subsequent death.
“He felt guilty. He felt like he was the one who got us sick,” Stephanie told FOX.
“He felt like he was the reason why his dad was gone and we talked to him all the time, and told him ‘It wasn’t your fault.”
Like many, Junior struggled with depression throughout the pandemic and found it difficult to process his father’s passing.
“My son wanted to go see his dad [and] against my better judgment, I let him go. It was the worst mistake I did,” the boy’s mother explained. She had tried to get therapy for the family but there were no available slots.
On December 28, three months after the death of her husband, Stephanie found her son had taken his own life when she discovered his bedroom light on at 4am.
“I knock on the door to his room,” she told KTTV, “and I’m like, ‘Hey, kid, it’s 4 in the morning, what are you doing?’
“He was gone. I couldn’t believe my baby’s gone,” she said.
“All my kids, they lost their dad. I can’t make that pain for them go away,” she said of her children, one of which is 15 and the other 18.
“But my son, he was more worried about us than he was worried about himself.”
In the August of 2020, Junior had written about the isolation of the pandemic, noting that “it forced me to distance myself from my friends and my girlfriend.”
He added: “That’s what caused my depression but then I luckily got better and thankful that I am a happy little boy today.”
A GoFundMe page was set up to aid the family in funeral costs.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please make use of these critical resources:
- Samaritans – 116 123
- Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) – 0800 58 58 58, or use webchat
- Shout Crisis Text Line – Text “SHOUT” to 85258
- NHS – 111
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