Every person's grief is different and we all have to find a way to cope. And these celebrities are no different.
Losing a loved one can create a pain so devastating, it feels as if there's a void in your soul that can never be filled again. But time stops for no one and we have to keep moving. Just like us, celebrities who have lost their spouses, children, or parents experience this inexplicable agony. Here are seven celebrities who have opened up about their suffering and how it feels to have survived such heartbreak:
When the Rambo actor lost his eldest son, Sage, he was broken. The son he lovingly raised was no more and he said, according to Metro UK, "When a parent loses a child there is no greater pain. This agonizing loss will be felt for the rest of our lives. Sage was our first child and the center of our universe and I am humbly begging for all to have my son’s memory and soul left in peace." But he knew he had to move on. "I think it's important to get back and start reliving your life. Otherwise, you can go into a spiral," he told Good Morning America.
The Taken star lost his wife Natasha Richardson suddenly after a skiing accident caused a fatal head injury. "Her death was never real. It still kind of isn't. There're periods now when I hear the door opening, especially the first couple of years... anytime I hear that door opening, I still think I'm going to hear her," he said, according to Cosmopolitan. In 2014, five years after her death, he said, "It hits you. It’s like a wave. You just get this profound feeling of instability. The Earth isn’t stable anymore and then it passes and it becomes more infrequent, but I still get it sometimes," according to 60 Minutes on CBS.
The actor lost his 16-year-old son Jett after he suffered a seizure while the family was on vacation. He and his wife, actress Kelly Preston were absolutely devastated. Travolta told Us Weekly that it was "the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life," according to USA Today. Though they kept their grief quiet and were ecstatic when they had their younger son Ben a few years later, the bereaved father told BBC Breakfast that Jett's death was so overwhelming it nearly made him retire.
He said, "I lost my son a few years ago and I had been having quite a time of that and after three years getting a lot of support from my church and a lot of support from people, fans, family I decided that it was OK to go back to work because I’d even thought of retiring at one point because it felt like too much."
For the My Heart Will Go On singer, it didn't matter that she and her husband, Rene Angelil had an age gap of 26 years because what they had was true love. So when he passed away after fighting cancer, she had to learn how to cope with the excruciating loss. "I'm still in love, once you are in love so much... I have lived all my life with René, he is still within me. I see him through the eyes of my children every day," Celine Dion once said in an interview with Andy Cohen. After his death, she mentioned that she would rather cherish their memories together. “You cannot stop living. Go forward. And today’s the first day of the beginning of my life because I know that, I don’t have to worry," she said, according to ABC News.
The Speed star lost her mom to cancer and years later, she was still trying to cope with the grief. "It took me two years to accept that she's not here. It doesn't get easier, it just gets harder. But it's a good thing because I feel it and I value it and I am not rushing through life," she said, according to Sify. And she moved on by using her position in society to help other women who were suffering from the same illness. "I love to do things that continue what she started, whether it's making candles or creating a place for women going through chemotherapy or to spend time with their families," she said.
Princess Diana's death shook the world but not more than it completely devastated her youngest son. According to People, he said in the BBC documentary Mind Over Marathon, “I still feel, 20 years later about my mother, I still have shock within me . . . People say shock can’t last that long, but it does. You never get over it. It’s such an unbelievably big moment in your life that it never leaves you, you just learn to deal with it.”
When Brosnan lost his first wife to cancer and then his daughter to the same, it nearly broke him. The night before his wife, Cassandra passed away, he said, "That was one of the longest nights of my life ever," according to People. “There is an incredible cruelty in it all, losing a person you shared everything with. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever experienced bereavement, and it’s overwhelming.”
And then having to deal with his daughter, Charlotte's death was another blow. According to the Daily Mail, a friend of his recalled that after she was gone, he wrote to her and said that "the most intense memory that he had was of always being able to make Charlotte laugh. He wanted to be able to make her laugh again." Thankfully, he had another chance at love with Keeley Smith and she helped him slowly let go of the pain.
You're not alone in your pain. The grief you experience is one that is intense but with the right people around, maybe it might help your own heart heal. If you have lost someone, talk to somebody close to you. Allow yourself to heal because after all, your lost loved ones wouldn't want to see you suffering.
References:
https://metro.co.uk/2012/07/15/sylvester-stallone-breaks-silence-on-son-sages-tragic-death-495364/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/liam-neeson-on-natasha-richardson-death-and-hollywood-success/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zosJxbl2aY&feature=emb_logo
https://people.com/celebrity/pierce-brosnans-daughter-dies-of-ovarian-cancer/
