Lisa Marie Presley is sharing her grief over losing son, Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020.
In an essay she wrote to mark “National Grief Awareness Day” on Tuesday, the daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley wrote about the grief she still feels over her son’s death.
“This is not a comfortable subject for anyone, and it is most unpopular to talk about,” she wrote in the essay, published in People, adding that she’s “sharing my thoughts in the hopes that somehow, we can change that.”
She wrote, “Death is part of life whether we like it or not — and so is grieving. There is so much to learn and understand on the subject, but here’s what I know so far: One is that grief does not stop or go away in any sense, a year, or years after the loss. Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, in spite of what certain people or our culture wants us to believe. You do not ‘get over it,’ you do not ‘move on,’ period.”
Presley added, “I already battle with and beat myself up tirelessly and chronically, blaming myself every single day and that’s hard enough to now live with, but others will judge and blame you too, even secretly or behind your back which is even more cruel and painful on top of everything else.”
READ MORE: Lisa Marie Presley Says It ‘Breaks’ Her Heart That Son Benjamin Isn’t Here To See ‘Elvis’ Movie
The lives of her and her three daughters, she wrote, “were completely detonated and destroyed by his death. We live in this every. Single. Day.”
However, she explained, “It’s a real choice to keep going, one that I have to make every single day and one that is constantly challenging to say the least … But I keep going for my girls. I keep going because my son made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind. He absolutely adored them and they him.”
The full essay can be read right here.
