Nolan Wells’ Mother Gets Emotional in Raw New Video: ‘Feels Like an Elephant Sitting on My Chest’
The mother of Nolan Wells, the Mississippi teen who died while on a Fourth of July trip with friends, is speaking out about grief amid the loss of her son.
Christine Wonsley opened up in an Instagram video shared on Thursday, July 16, thanking supporters for their “love” and “kindness” following Nolan’s death, and sharing how she is processing the loss.
“Right now everything is so heavy. Everything is so heavy. Just been going through the motions. I’m a health care provider so I talk about grief a lot,” Wonsley said. “Now to be on the other side of this, it’s a lot. I lost my mom a few years ago and that was hard. This loss, this pain, this grief hits different. It’s unsurmountable.”
Wonsley shared her thoughts on the “multi-layered” nature of grief, saying “one second I might be okay and I can talk about things and I can listen to his stories and the next minute I am falling apart.”
“I feel like I can’t breathe and I feel like there is an elephant just sitting on my chest, but I know this is the process,” she continued. “I have a wonderful support system, I have my faith in God, which I’ve been leaning heavy into.”
She also said that she is determined to keep telling her son’s story because that’s what Nolan would have wanted.
“I know if Nolan was here, he’d be like, ‘Mom, just keep talking to the people. Keep telling my story,” she continued.
Wonsley also said that she and her family had not yet had time to fully process Nolan’s death. “The loss is so fresh and still we haven’t been able to grieve,” she wrote in the video’s caption. “This loss hits so differently than anything I’ve ever experienced. My heart will never be whole again.”
Nolan, who was 18 at the time of his death, disappeared while on a boat trip to Mississippi’s Horn Island with a group of friends on July 4. The group returned from the island without Nolan, whose body was discovered two days later and identified using dental records.
The family has launched its own independent investigation into Wells’ death and commissioned a separate autopsy, saying they believe several aspects of the case remain unanswered. Officials are still waiting for toxicology testing results before his autopsy report can be finalized.
The emotional video comes one day after Wonsley and Nolan’s father, Elmore Wonsley, met with Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath to discuss the investigation into the teen’s death. During the meeting, the family agreed to a joint inspection of the contents of Nolan’s phone with prosecutors and the family’s attorney, Benjamin Crump.
Tracestin Shepherd, Wells’ friend, said during an interview with Good Morning America that aired on July 13 that the late football player had left his phone on a boat while swimming in the ocean so as not to get it wet, as previously reported by PEOPLE. The phone remained there, and later Wells’ parents used a tracking app to locate it with the help of a friend back on the mainland.
Crump also previously questioned why a teenager would put a phone down, while Wells’ parents have said that they consider their son leaving his phone on the boat highly unusual.
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The mother of Nolan Wells, the Mississippi teen who died while on a Fourth of July trip with friends, is speaking out about grief amid the loss of…