Actor Alicia Witt is opening up about the loss of her parents a little over a month after they were found dead in their home in Worcester, Massachusetts.
"It still doesn't feel real. It’s been a month since i got scared, not having heard back from them, and called to have them checked on," Witt, who starred in "The Walking Dead," wrote in a long Facebook post Tuesday. "Waiting, phone in hand, praying fervently that the next call would be from them, angry i’d gotten someone else involved. knowing as soon as i heard the detective’s voice on the other line that they were gone. knowing i would never hear their voices again. beginning the rest of my life of finding them on the breeze, in a song, in a dream."
Police found the bodies of Robert Witt, 87, and Diane Witt, 75, on Dec. 20 after Alicia Witt asked a cousin who lives nearby to check on them.
There were reports that the couple had been having furnace problems, according to The Telegram & Gazette newspaper of Worcester. WFXT-TV of Boston reported that they are believed to have died of hypothermia.
Witt wrote that there were a number of "misconceptions" about her parents' deaths and said she was unaware that they were having heating issues.
In her post, she said her parents were "fiercely stubborn, beautifully original souls" who would not accept her offers to help them.
"I hadn’t been allowed inside my parents’ home for well over a decade; every time i offered to have something repaired for them, they refused to allow workers into their house. i begged, cried, tried to reason with them, tried to convince them to let me help them move — but every time, they became furious with me, telling me i had no right to tell them how to live their lives and that they had it all under control. it was not for a lack of trying on my part, or the part of other people who loved them. My parents were not penniless," she posted.
Witt, who has appeared in a number of movies and television shows, including "Last Holiday," said she still struggles thinking about what else she could have done for her parents.
“I had no idea that their heat had gone out. i will never understand how or why they made the choice not to tell me this, not to let me help them with this. my heart is broken," she wrote.
Witt said that despite the struggles, she is "deeply grateful" that she had the opportunity to have a private funeral in Worcester for her parents this month. She ended the post by saying that the last words she exchanged with her parents were "I love you."
"That part was simple; never in doubt," she wrote. "they loved me so. i loved them so."