Radio Host Delilah Opens Up About the Deaths of Her Two Sons on ‘Dr. Oz’
Radio DJ Delilah has been in turmoil the last few years following the 2017 death of her 18-year-old son Zack, who died by suicide. Just a few years before Zack’s death, she lost her other son Sammy from sickle cell anemia in 2012. He was 16.
Now, she is opening up about her heartbreak on an episode of The Dr. Oz Show, where she recalls feeling angry after Zack’s death.
“I went into a rage when I started doing the research on the medicine I told you that he was given,” she said to Dr. Oz, though it’s unclear which medicine her son was taking at the time of his death.
“[Zack gave me permission] to call his doctor and I did call — I called twice — and I said, ‘My son’s talking about weird space travel and weird time loop continuums,’” she said. “His doctor never returned my call. He spent Saturday and Sunday at his dad’s house, they had his favorite food, they watched Star Wars.“
She continued: “Then, Monday night, he came home from his dad’s house. He spent a few hours in the barn with our cats — we had four kittens — [then] came in and ate dinner with our family. [He] went up to his room and played video games, and then at 10:30 he came down. I was in Africa and he said to my husband, ‘I’m going to go for a walk.’”
Zack died on October 3, 2017, and Delilah revealed the news publicly on Facebook on October 12. The host also revealed on Dr. Oz that her niece found a “nine-page letter tucked under the pillow of [Zack’s] bed” that he had left behind.
“It was all about time travel,” Delilah explained. “He said he had to fix something that was wrong, and that he would wake up the next day in his own bed, and he would probably have to do this a number of times before he got it right.”
Eventually, through immense soul-searching, Delilah started to see the death of her sons from a new perspective.
“There’s a man named Rory Feek who is a country songwriter who lost his wife to cancer,” Delilah said. “He called me, and he said, ‘Delilah, your boys are much more a part of your future than they are of your past.’”
“We share the same faith and I just, I was in this rage, and I said, ‘How can you say that? I don’t get to go to their weddings, I don’t get to see their babies, I don’t get to be a grandma, I don’t get to see them graduate, both of them,’” she continued. “And he said, ‘Because you know where they are, and you know you’ll be with them in the future.’”
This is so sad, and our hearts go out to Delilah and to anyone who’s ever lost someone they loved so young.
If you think a loved one is contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. Trained professionals will help walk you through healthy next steps.