Kelly Preston is not ready to speak publicly about the death of her 16-year-old son Jett, who passed away earlier this year at the family’s home in the Bahamas.

Preston has withdrawn from California First Lady Maria Shriver’s California Governor’s Conference for Women in Long Beach this October. The wife of John Travolta was due to speak on the “Grief & Resilience” panel.

“It is with my sincere apologies that I must pull out from speaking at [the] conference. I am sorry, but I truly believed that I could do it,” Preston said in a statement to PEOPLE Friday. “Otherwise I never would have said that I could. But I am still deeply in the process of healing, and it’s just too soon.”

Shriver, the wife of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is coping with the loss of her own mother – Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died earlier this month at the age of 88 — and this week’s passing of her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, also passed away at 77. She is supportive of Preston’s decision to pull out of the conference.

“I know how hard it was for Kelly to make this decision and she has my complete support and understanding. Everyone has their own path to healing and their own timetable for grieving,” Shriver said in a statement. “Kelly’s presence at The Women’s Conference will be missed, but the main stage conversation on grief and resilience with Elizabeth Edwards, Susan Saint James and myself will continue as planned. Having just lost my own mother and my uncle, I believe it’s an important and meaningful subject because loss and grief will touch everyone at some point in their lives.”