Melissa Etheridge speaks about moving on from the death of her son Beckett Cypher in a new interview

Melissa Etheridge opened up about the tragic death of her son Beckett Cypher earlier this year in an interview with Rolling Stone published Thursday.

The 59-year-old Come To My Window singer spoke of how she came to grips with her son’s opioid addiction prior to his death in May at age 21.

‘As the mother of someone who was addicted to opioids, it’s a struggle,’ she said via video chat.

‘You want to help your child. You want to make them all better. He was a young adult. There were things out of my control, of course. 

‘And there came a time when I needed to really sit down with myself and say, “I can’t save him. I can’t give up my life and go try to live his life for him,”‘ she recalled.

‘And I had to come up against the possibility that he might die. But I had to be able to go on living. Of course it’s nothing a parent ever wants. 

‘But as a human being, I just needed to be at peace with a troubled son who did the best he could, who believed what he believed, and then his life ended way, way too soon,’ she said.

Although Melissa had considered the possibility of Beckett’s death, she was still overcome with feelings of guilt after he died.

‘There will always be that that place in my heart and my soul that that has a little bit of, “Oh, what could what could I have done? And is it my fault he ended this way?” and all that sort of thing,’ she admitted.

The Grammy winner explained that the feeling of not having done enough began to diminish over time.

‘It just gets smaller and smaller, because it doesn’t serve me anymore, and where he is now, he certainly doesn’t want me to take that on. So, you know, if that can help any parents who might be torturing themselves with that… You can’t lay down, You can’t be shattered. You can’t die and give up. You know, that’s what my son did. It’s to be lived. It’s to learn. I still struggle with it, but that’s what I can say.’

Etheridge shared Cyrus with her partner Julie Cypher, whom she was together with from 1990–2000.

In 1998, Julie gave birth to their son Beckett using sperm donated from legendary rocker David Crosby, who is also the biological father of their daughter Bailey, 23.

Melissa also spoke about the success of Etheridge TV, her subscription website devoted to livestreaming performances from her home, as the coronavirus pandemic has made concerts temporarily impossible.

The I’m The Only One singer offers a subscription package that lets fans watch each of her daily concerts and chat shows for free, and fans can also pay for individual shows.

Her wife, Linda Wallem, whom she married in 2014, has also been helping out with the distanced shows.

‘It gives us something to do every day get through this time, and it’s really just saved us,’ she said.