Yiyun Li's Haunting and Courageous 'The Deaths and Lives of Two Sons'
Twenty-plus years ago, I lost my younger brother and closest friend. He was just thirty. His illness and death detonated me leaving a blast radius so vast and enduring that even now there are days I feel like I'm still burning.
And if that loss alone wasn't unbearable enough, seeing it ripple through everyone who loved him turned the pain into something almost cosmic. I watched my younger sister hollowed by the loss of her younger brother; his wife, widowed at just thirty, left to piece together a future from the ruins; a long line of aunts, uncles, and cousins once lit by his presence, now dimmed; and a brotherhood of lifelong friends, forever punctured by the absence of the one they couldn't imagine life without. But nothing, and I do mean nothing, was, or remains, more shattering than bearing close witness to my parents' loss of their youngest child.
Grief is a mad butcher. It cuts and carves deep. But the death of a child reconfigures the soul entirely.
When a child dies, you bury the child in your heart.
-Khalil Gibran
There's no shortage of literature on this subject. Most of it is too brutal and heartbreaking to touch, even for parents desperate to find a way forward.
In my own attempts to understand the shape and scale of what my parents live with, to find words that might make their pain even faintly intelligible, I've read much over the years. And found little that truly helped. That is, until recently when I finally summoned the courage to read Yiyun Li's devastating New Yorker essay, The Deaths and Lives of Two Sons.
Li's account of losing her 16-year-old son, and seven years later, her 19-year-old son—both to suicide—is crushing. But it's also the most raw, honest, and reverent piece I've ever read on the subject of losing a child.
The truth is that however I choose to express myself will not live up to the weight of these facts: Vincent died, and then James died.
-Yiyun Li, New Yorker (2025)
What Li has crafted defies logic. It's brave and sacred. Her words cut through the noise of our current moment and force us to focus on what actually matters: the loss of two beloved sons and the unbearable, indelible grief of their mother.
Did Li's piece help me make better sense of my younger brother's death all those years ago? I honestly don't know. But it did something perhaps more important. It gave me a deeper, clearer window into the immensity of my parents' loss and their deep sorrow, a view I've often struggled to hold in full.
Li's piece will hit you in places you didn't know you could feel. I understand why people might shy away from "The Deaths and Lives of Two Sons"—whether they've been spared this kind of grief or forced to witness it up close. But we owe this brave woman our attention. If only to sit beside her, place a hand on her shoulder, and let her know that even in a world without Vincent and James, she is not alone.
Respectfully.