Photo: David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty
Riley Keoughis opening up about her grief one year after the tragic death of her brother Benjamin.
“The first four or five months, I couldn’t get out of bed,” she recalled. “I was totally debilitated. I couldn’t talk for two weeks.”
Riley, who isElvis Presley’s granddaughter andLisa Marie Presley’s daughter, went on to say that she still struggles with accepting Benjamin’s death.
“It’s very complicated for our minds to put that somewhere because it’s so outrageous,” she explained. “If I’m going through a breakup, I know what to do with that and where to file it in my mind, but suicide of your brother? Where do you put that? How does that integrate? It just doesn’t.”
Benjamin and Riley Keough.Riley Keough/Instagram
For Riley, she’s been leaning on family and friends, including husbandBen Smith-Petersen.
“I wanted to make sure that I was feeling everything and I wasn’t running from anything,” said Riley, whocompleted her training as a death doulaearlier this year.
“That’s really what’s helped me, being able to put myself in a position of service,” she said of the role. “If I can help other people, maybe I can find some way to help myself.”
The actress previously touched on her journey to become a death doula in an Instagram post on March 21, thanking her teachers for “training people in conscious dying and death work.”
“We are taught that it’s a morbid subject to talk about. Or we’re so afraid of it that we’re unable to talk about it… then of course it happens to us, and we are very ill prepared,” she wrote at the time.
“I think it’s so important to be educated on conscious dying and death the way we educate ourselves on birth and conscious birthing,” Riley continued. “We prepare ourselves so rigorously for the entrance and have no preparation for our exit. So I’m so grateful for this community and to be able to contribute what I can.”
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On July 12, Rileymarked one year since Benjamin’s deathwith a tribute on her Instagram, sharing a series of throwback photographs from their childhood.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go tosuicidepreventionlifeline.org.
source: people.com
