Hi Mary Alice,

I haven't posted to you in the past, because the main thought I've had about your posts are, well I felt maybe inappropriate for me to say, especially since we don't know each other.

But since some of the others who posted above mentioned it, here goes. I don't have children and there's "no hope on the horizon" though I'm always willing to adopt. When I read your posts you talk about how Alex tells you constantly that he loves you. He wakes up in the morning kissing you. Didn't you say that when you stopped in his school the other day he told you right there that he loves you?

While I understand that having a child isn't the be all and end all of happiness and that a person obviously can be clinically depressed even with a child that they care for.........................................all I can think when I read your posts is, "How could she do that to HIM?" Aside from the logistics, who would raise him, is that person someone you would WANT to be his only parent? How does a 6,7 year old reconcile his mother taking her own life? She didn't love me enough? I didn't love her enough? I was bad so she left me? How do I ever get close to and trust another adult, because my mom loved me most and she still died?

I have a friend who's mother commited suicide when my friend was around 35. She talks about it often and gets tears in her eyes every time. This was more than 15 years ago, and my friend was and still is happily married with 3 adult children. Yet, she has never, will never get over the fact that her mother was hurting so much that she took her own life. Is that what you want for Alex?

I hope that all you have to do is look in his face, realize how much he needs you, and let that be the impetus for finding the will to live.

You are the most important person in his life. I don't say this to make you see this responsibility as a burden further adding to your problems. It is not a burden, it is a gift.

Take care,
pebs

<font color=purple> The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated--Gandhi

Sometimes I lie awake at night in bed and I ask, "Is it all worth it?" And then a voice says, "Who are you talking to?" And another voice says, "You mean, ' To whom are you talking?'" And I say, "No wonder I lie awake at night."--Charlie Brown </font color=purple>