Talking to son about dad's suicide

ah, god.  what a difficult situation for you and your son.  my children (15 and 10) witnessed my husband put a gun to his head (luckily the clips were somewhere else that he forgot).  my 15 yr old wrestled the gun out of his dad's hands.

i think that the best you can say is to tell your son that his father's suicide had NOTHING to do with anything your son did.  that daddy was very depressed and didn't know how to get rid of the depression and his way of handling the pain inside was to end it by taking his life.  and it doesn't mean that daddy didn't love him, but that daddy's pain is gone and daddy is in heaven now and loves him very very much.  at least, that's what i'm gonna tell my kids if my husband actually ends up killing himself. 

i'd like to say that kids are resilient, but in the case of a parent's suicide, they tend to keep the hurt inside.  my cousin's father hung himself on a tree in their front yard.  thankfully, my cousin was only a toddler at the time.  but even now as an adult, he still wonders about his father and what was so bad in his father's mind that he took his own life.

may i suggest that you get counseling for your son?  sometimes, talking with a "stranger" is easier than talking to mommy. 

good luck.  my heart goes out to you and your son.