Lisa Marie Presley Opens up About Son Benjamin’s Death in Emotional Essay

Lisa Marie Presley is opening up about life in the “unrelenting grip” of grief after the loss of her late son Benjamin Keough. In honor of National Grief Awareness Day Tuesday, Presley, 54, penned a heartwrenching essay for PEOPLE about the difficult times she’s faced since her son’s death by suicide in 2020 at age 27, noting that while death and grief are “most unpopular” to talk about, they’re inevitable parts of life.

“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,” she writes. “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.” Grieving is also an “incredibly lonely” experience, Presley notes, especially once the initial flood of loved ones and well-wishers begin to move on in their own lives.

It’s especially difficult if the loss was “premature, unnatural, or tragic,” which Presley writes makes you “become a pariah in a sense,” feeling stigmatized and judged for what happened. “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,” she says, adding that support groups of people who have suffered similar losses have been a lifeline.

“Obviously, no parent chooses this road, and thankfully not all parents will have to become a victim to it – and I do mean VICTIM here. I used to hate that word. Now I know why,” she writes. “I’ve dealt with death, grief and loss since the age of nine years old. I’ve had more than anyone’s fair share of it in my lifetime and somehow, I’ve made it this far. But this one, the death of my beautiful, beautiful son? The sweetest and most incredible being that I have ever had the privilege of knowing, who made me feel so honored every single day to be his mother? Who was so much like his grandfather on so many levels that he actually scared me? Which made me worry about him even more than I naturally would have? No. Just no … no no no no …”

It’s a “real choice” to keep going, Presley says, but she knows she has to push on for her three daughters – Riley Keough, 33, and 13-year-old twins Finley Aaron Love and Harper Vivienne Anne. “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,” she writes. “He absolutely adored them and they him.”

Wrapping up her essay, Presley encouraged people who need help dealing with grief in themselves or a loved one to visit grief.com and “show up” for those they know in need. “My and my three daughters’ lives as we knew it were completely detonated and destroyed by his death,” she wrote. “We live in this every. Single. Day.”