Marie Osmond opened up on Thursday's "The Oprah Winfrey Show" about the last conversation she had with her son before he committed suicide. "When I heard him say to me, I have no friends, it brought back when I went through depression because you really feel so alone," Osmond, 51, tells Winfrey. "I'm not a depressed person, but I understand that place, that darkness."
Osmond, who struggled with post-partum depression in her past, continues her hearfelt recollection, remembering that she told her son, Michael Bryan, that she would be with him soon. "But I told him ... and the hardest thing ... I said, Mike, I'm gonna be there Monday and it's gonna be okay," she said. "But depression doesn't wait until Monday."
Her 18-year-old son jumped to his death in February after a long battle with severe depression which prompted his admittance to a rehab facility in 2007. In 2009, Osmond said her son seemed to be doing better, carrying a 3.9 GPA and planning for college. Before Bryan comitted suicide this year, he left a note on his bed explaining that he felt he had no friends and didn't fit in.
In her heartwrenching interview with Winfrey, Osmond explains why she went back to work only a couple of weeks after her son's death. "It was a calculated decision. I'm unique, I guess," she says. "I'm a female in the entertainment business who has been working 48 years consistently. My stage is my safe place." She adds, "I knew that if I didn't get back on stage that I may never get back on stage."
When asked if she lived with regrets or doubts about how she handled her son's situation, Osmond replied, "I think there are always 'what if's.' What if I had just put him on a plane and said come be with me, or gone there?" However, Osmond refuses to be paralyzed by the tragedy.
"I think if you live in 'what if's,' you stop living," she says.
