A Lullaby for Child Loss: My Child on Earth Above In Heaven’s Care

A Lullaby for Child Loss: My Child on Earth Above In Heaven’s Care

Listen to the Song: My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care

ABOUT THIS POST: A Lullaby for Child Loss: My Child on Earth Above, In Heaven’s Care provides a deeply personal and emotional insight into the inspiration behind the lullaby “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care.” The vivid storytelling effectively conveys the grief and hope intertwined in the lyrics. 

A Note About This Blog

I write that I might heal my grief over losing my only child, my 20-year-old son, to suicide June 25, 2012.

The beautiful photographs of flowers, shrubs, and trees in bloom throughout the seasons are from my gardens.

Writing to Heal My Grief

Gardening, taking photos, and writing poems, blog posts, books, and songs bring serenity to my now upside-down world after losing my son to suicide. I find hope and healing writing poems and songs. Perhaps in listening and reading, you will, too.

Find Hope Here: Poems of Love, Loss, and Losing a Child

I also write poems about losing a child.

You can read them here: Find Hope Here: Featuring Poems About Losing a Child.

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A Dark Room with a Single Candle for Light

I sat in a darkened room lighted only by a candle, cradling my acoustic guitar, rocking gently back and forth. Almost as if I were holding a baby. My baby. Through all the years. Each year of his life. Each year of his love.

Tears streaming down my face and with my voice barely above a whisper. “As I tuck you in, I lay me down.” A downward descent with my voice. Melodic. Soothing. Over and again, “As I tuck you in, I lay me down.”

When I wrote A Lullaby for Child Loss: My Child on Earth Above, In Heaven’s Care, I originally titled the song “As I Tuck You In” because the music has the feel and rhythm of a lullaby, and the lyrics and music came from the depths of my sorrow.

In Saying Good Night to My Son, I Was Really Saying Goodbye to Him

And so what began as my strumming my guitar and singing “As I tuck you in, I lay me down” became a fully-fledged song. A song with a rhythm and picked pattern meant to soothe a child, the song soothed me as I grieved the loss of my son.

A lullaby melody and rhythm meant for rocking and soothing a child became emblematic for my grief. “My Child on Earth Above In Heaven’s Care.”

In saying good night to my son, I was really saying goodbye to him.

As I tuck you in, I lay me down

As I hold you now, I lift my arms

As I fall to sleep, I pray for you

My child, my love, my heart, I’m with you too.

“My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care,” All music and lyrics by ©Beth Brown

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Writing a Lullaby

My Story

I lost my 20-year-old son, my only child, to suicide June 25, 2012. He was a sophomore in college. So why did I write a lullaby?

Perhaps because I was at that point in early grief where all of me collapsed inward, reclusive and withdrawn from the world-at-large because my world had stopped turning the second I lost my son.

I sat in a darkened room lighted only by a candle, cradling my acoustic guitar, rocking gently back and forth. Almost as if I were holding a baby. My baby. Through all the years. Each year of his life. Each year of his love.

Singing from the Depths of Sorrow

I could barely speak, let alone sing. My words, my voice, more a whisper than a vocal inflection where singing meant inhaling deeply and opening my throat. I could barely breathe, barely manage to speak at all. I wept and quivered in acute grief. And rocked back and forth, back and forth.

And so from the depths of that grief comes hope in a lullaby–hope that I will see Dylan again, faith that God will keep him safe until I get to wherever my son is too.

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Related Posts

https://myforeverson.com/2023/04/07/songs-for-child-loss/

You’re Free Now Child: A Song About Child Loss

Find Hope Here: Poems of Love, Loss, and Losing a Child

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Lyrics to My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care

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Remembering Dylan

Remembering Dylan

I remember when Dylan was 8 years old, just beginning piano lessons, and I used to drive him to a local university to take lessons in their music conservatory. We would make the same trip to the university each week for the next 6 years.

I loved hearing Dylan practice. A plastic figurine of Schroeder playing piano donned with a plastic bust of Beethoven from “Charlie Brown,” always sat on top of the upright Schuerman piano. Scott Joplin’s ragtime; Snoopy’s happy dance song; classical pieces; and eventually, jazz (Thelonious Monk) all wafted up from the lower level of our house into the kitchen where I was cooking dinner for the two of us. Wonderful memories. Wonderful years.

Dylan began composing music too, though mostly unbeknownst to me. Those were his teenage years. Years when his friends knew more about him than I did.

Listen to My Child on Earth Above, In Heaven’s Care

Listen to Instrumental Music for Grief

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