The 'Bring Me Some Water' singer opens up about her struggles to get her son Beckett help during his battle with opioid addiction before his tragic passing.
- Aug 9, 2020
AceShowbiz - Melissa Etheridge gave up on trying to save her late son from himself after realising there was nothing else she could do to fix him.
Beckett Cypher was 21 when he lost his battle with opiate addiction in May (20) and now his mum has told Rolling Stone she struggled for years to try and get her son help.
"You want to help your child, you want to make them all better," she says. "He was a young adult. There were things out of my control, of course. And there came a time when I needed to really sit down with myself and say, 'I can't save him. I can't give up my life and go try to live his life for him.' "
At that point, the singer/songwriter accepted the possibility her son might die.
"I had to be able to go on living," she adds. "Of course it's nothing a parent ever wants, but as a human being, I just needed to be at peace with a troubled son who did the best he could, who believed what he believed and then his life ended way, way too soon."
Melissa admits she'll always feel a little guilt, explaining, "There will always be that place in my heart and my soul that has a little bit of 'Oh, what could I have done?' and, 'Is it my fault he ended this way?' and all that sort of thing. And it just gets smaller and smaller, because it doesn’t serve me anymore, and where he is now, he certainly doesn't want me to take that on..."
"I believe life is meant to be lived with as much joy as we can (sic). But life is also contrast. Life is also up and down. I've lived enough of it now to know. And you can't lay down. You can't be shattered. You can't die and give up. You know, that's what my son did. It's to be lived. It's to learn. I still struggle with it but that's what I can say."
