LifeStyle of 2026-09-03

Dear GhanaWeb: My 24-year-old son died from drug overdose

Dear GhanaWeb, I lost my 24-year-old son to a drug overdose three years ago, and honestly, I still blame myself for his death. Sometimes I sit alone and wonder whether his mother and I truly raised him the way we should have. I keep asking myself if we had been stricter, more involved, or more intentional with him; maybe he would have been here with us. Maybe by now, he would have been married and given us grandchildren to spoil and play with. We had only two children throughout our 32 years of marriage, a girl and a boy. We wanted four children and tried several times, but even having our second child took a lot of grace. Because he was our only son, we treated him differently. We pampered him and gave him almost everything he wanted. We gave him so much freedom because we trusted him and wanted him to enjoy life. Looking back now, I sometimes feel that we gave him everything except the kind of guidance and discipline he needed. After his death, I was completely broken. I cried almost every day and constantly worried about him. He was my boy, and we shared so many beautiful memories from his childhood. About a month after his death, I had a dream that he came to see me. In the dream, I was worried about him as usual, but he seemed amused by my concern. He looked fine and strangely peaceful. Then he told me, “Dad, take it easy. I’m never far away. I’m fine, and just checking out new places.” I woke up at dawn, and for the first time since his death, I felt strangely comforted. It was as though I had truly felt his presence. But that was not the last time. For the past three years, I have continued to see my son in my dreams. Sometimes it feels like he is there almost every night. He appears in different situations, and whenever I wake up, I cannot shake the feeling that he is still somehow around me. I don’t know why this keeps happening. Part of me feels comforted because I miss him terribly. Another part of me worries because it feels as though he is trying to communicate something I haven’t understood yet. Maybe it’s simply my mind struggling to accept that my son is gone. Maybe grief has made me hold on to him in a way I cannot explain. But what if these dreams mean something more? Why does my son keep coming back to me in my dreams, and what could he possibly be trying to tell me? How should I go about this? FG/EB What every mother should know about maternal mental health