Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere

Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere

Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere skillfully intertwines the sorrow stemming from the loss of the author’s son to suicide with the tumult wrought by a powerful Derecho storm that occurred on the day of his funeral. A powerful narrative and a poignant poem by the author born from a storm out of nowhere on June 29, 2012. Where a mother’s grief and nature’s historic storm collide.

Introduction

Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere details the historic storm on June 29, 2012 that arose during the funeral for the author’s son. The narrative blends the author’s grief of losing her only child to suicide and the shock of his funeral with the sudden eruption of violent winds, downed power wires, and darkened skies blotting out the noonday sun. On a day drenched in sorrow, the author reveals a narrative where even nature felt as though it were grieving too.

A Note from the Author

Derecho–A Storm Out of Nowhere features “He Left Too Soon,” a grief poem borne from the depth of my grief on my son’s funeral, alongside the poignant story that inspired it, details the deep and abiding sorrow of losing my beloved son to suicide during the unexpected storm known as Derecho.

On the Chaos of Grief After Losing a Child to Suicide

I didn’t know how heavy grief feels. How losing a child can pull breath and life from you. How grief lives everywhere inside you when you lose a child to suicide.

Experiencing the loss of a child to suicide feels like a storm out of nowhere

Experiencing the loss of a child to suicide feels like a storm out of nowhere, both in a metaphorical sense and, for me, quite literally, as Derecho swept through on the very day of my son’s funeral, shrouding the moment in a chaotic blend of grief and nature’s fury. The ominous winds mirrored my inner turmoil, encapsulating a heartbreak that was overwhelming and profound.

“He Left Too Soon” Poem

I’ve included the definition and explanation of Derecho to give the poem further context and resonance, allowing readers to grasp not just the tumultuous weather, but also the emotional tempest that accompanies such a tragic loss. “He Left Too Soon” is ultimately the name of the poem I wrote that day of my son’s funeral when the powerful Derecho swept through the Midwest.

Photographs of the Historic Derecho Gathering Strength

A Satellite’s View of a Derecho

Storm clouds gather below in a satellite view of the Northeastern United States capturing the beginnings of the historic Derecho on June 29, 2012 in the Midwest.

Photograph of a Derecho Looking Up

Fast-moving storm clouds gather to form a horizontal front of powerful, high-intensity winds in the beginning of a Derecho.

The Storm Out of Nowhere Begins

Heart heaving, this beating of tears
Breaking loose—
All hell in earth’s upturned rupture

Beth Brown, “He Left Too Soon,” My Forever Son

Funeral for My Son

June 29, 2012–Funeral for my son. 101 degrees dropping to 73 degrees in a matter of minutes. Whirling wind. Gusts of whipping wind. Snapping wind. Dark skies. Clotted clouds. Midday sun going away–suddenly. A piercing dark. A turbulent sky. Trying to get to the car before the rains came. Things blowing. Paper across parking lots. Light going out. Light extinguished. He Left Too Soon.

Derecho–A Storm Out of Nowhere: Darkness on the wings of violent winds. 60-80 m.p.h. Trees cracking. Branches breaking. Traffic lights swaying to and fro. As if in a dream I couldn’t break. A nightmare I’d have to live out the rest of my life.

June 29, 2012–My son’s funeral was on a day heaving itself pell-mell, uprooting itself, shaking loose all grounding, breaking all that held it dear, all that called it life, all that depended upon it to be as it had always been.

A day rupturing earth in a storm violent and of epic proportion. Derecho. Unpredictable. Violent. Sudden. Never knowing we were in the path of such a storm. Having never seen let alone been through a storm capable of damaging this much to so many.

The Noise of The Wind. As If It Were Screaming.

The noise of the wind. As if it were screaming. Over and over, rising and hissing, falling and rising, screaming and moaning, cracking and casting itself broken. Falling down. Tumbling down. The sudden downing of it all. Power down. Wires down. Caught in the catastrophic exhale of sky, earth, trees, and now, even light extinguished.

Derecho–A Storm Out of Nowhere. Bringing It All Down. Breaking Things. Destructive nightmare of high, flat winds. A Dark Sky. A Dark Day. That week you took your life. That week you took me with you.

A Poem Borne From the Historic Derecho, June 29, 2012: “He Left Too Soon”

He Left Too Soon 

He left too soon,
Lifting life from June,
Casting torrents of rain.
 
His absence,
Breath of pain whose exhale can only bring
Heart heaving, this heavy beating of tears.

Breaking loose,
All hell in earth's upturned rupture, 
Death shoveling shadows over me.

As I bend to lay flowers on his name,
Inscribed and bronzed, 
A permanence come to stay.
 
My love laced now with pain,
Standing over my son's grave,
Death's Derecho come to stay in my shadow.

©Beth Brown, 2021, "He Left Too Soon"

"He Left Too Soon" is a poem inspired by the rare Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere on the day of his funeral.

What is a Derecho?

Derecho is derived from the Spanish adjective for “straight” or “direct.” A Derecho is a fast-moving (60-80 mph winds) storm seeming to come out of nowhere. A violent storm bent on destruction, a Derecho is a

(Derecho is a) widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms. . . Derechos can cause hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, heavy rains, and flash floods.

Chicago Tribune, By Russ Schumacher, The Conversation
Associated Press

The Historic Derecho of June 29, 2012

On June 29, 2012, a devastating line of thunderstorms known as a Derecho (deh REY cho) moved east-southeast at 60 miles per hour (mph) from Indiana in the early afternoon to the Mid-Atlantic region around midnight. The states most significantly impacted were Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, and North Carolina, as well as Washington, D.C. Nearly every county impacted by this convective system suffered damages and power outages.

Winds were commonly above 60 mph with numerous reports of winds exceeding 80 mph. Some areas reported isolated pockets of winds greater than 100 mph. The storm resulted in 13 deaths, mainly a result of falling trees. One major impact from the derecho was widespread power outages. More than 4 million customers were without power, some for more than a week after the storms moved through. To make matters worse, the area affected was in the midst of a prolonged heat wave.

The Historic Derecho of June 29, 2012
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service

“He Left Too Soon”: A Grief Poem Borne From A Storm Out of Nowhere

One of the earliest poems I ever wrote about the great gulf of sorrow that swept over me when I lost my son Dylan to suicide was “He Left Too Soon,” a poem borne of the Derecho, a storm out of nowhere, on the day of my son’s funeral. My heart wept (it still does, though I’ve learned to carry love and ache together). Who I was fled my existence. My career. My teaching. My art. My music. My voice. My writing.

A great and terrible silence 

A great and terrible silence came over me. I couldn’t speak more than a few words. I was lost in the rush and consumption of shock and grief. I wrote a few words as a note on my phone, about seeing my son laid out in a coffin, about how that day was the second worst day of my life. But it’s as though someone else was writing the words. I couldn’t find me, my words, my reflections, in my writing. It would be months before I could.

That profound grief, the spilling over of all I held precious and dear, the endless tears I wept, the way all of me went away the day my son died, sought expression in a way that had always reached into my deepest feelings. 

Lifting Life from June

“He left too soon, lifting life from June” began so small, yet slowly took shape as the poem it is today. My first season of grief, summer and my son’s memorial date, expressed in poetic language. My deepest sorrow laid bare in the starkness of language befitting of grief. 

“He Left Too Soon” is cloaked in language that was once foreign to me. Words drenched in loss and ache. Words belonging to cemeteries and the burying of the dead. Words that express only pain and hurt. Words that state bluntly the finality of life. I have known sadness my entire life, but I didn’t know how heavy grief feels. How losing a child can pull breath and life from you. How grief lives everywhere inside you when you lose a child to suicide.

Casting Torrents of Tears

The wallop of grief, the distortion of time and place, the feelings of shock and horror, the feeling of disbelief and the hideous reality of my son’s suicide. It is the first time I would write about losing my son, but it is not the last. 

I had so few words. For one who’s read so much, I could find only the solemnity of language. A few sparse words that felt as heavy and weighted as the intense pain in my heart. Words of mourning. Echoes of late June when I lost my son. 

Truth in “casting torrents of rain” because we were having drenching rains that week. Poetic because metaphorically, my grief was casting torrents of tears everywhere in my life. 

“He Left Too Soon:” Poem

He Left Too Soon

He left too soon— 
Lifting life from June,
Casting torrents of rain
 
His absence—
Breath of pain whose exhale can only bring
Heart heaving, this beating of tears

Breaking loose—
All hell in earth's upturned rupture, 
Death shoveling shadows over me

As I bend to lay flowers on his name—
Inscribed and bronzed, 
A permanence come to stay
 
My love laced now with pain—
Standing over my son's grave,
Death's Derecho come to stay in my shadow.


©Beth Brown, 2021, "He Left Too Soon" 
     

More Readings from My Forever Son

• Loving Him Past His Pain: A Mother’s Heartfelt Journey.
• The Magnolia Tree: A Magnificent Symbol of Hope and Resilience
• Exploring the Impact of Suicide on Families: Finding Light in Darkness
• Understanding ‘Once Upon a Blue-Sky Moon’ Poem’s Heartfelt Message
• “Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”: Poem on Child Loss
  
  

Companion Pieces from My Forever Son

• A Deluge of Feelings: Year 8 Memorial Date
• Navigating Grief on Memorial Dates: A Personal Journey
• “He Left Too Soon” Poem: A Mother’s Deep Sorrow
• Why Suicides Spike in Spring and Summer
• Too Soon, Too Cold: The Wind Doth Blow
  
  

Beth Brown, Author

About the Author

Beth Brown is a writer, educator, and bereaved mother who shares her journey of healing after losing her only son, Dylan, to suicide. Through poetry, essays, and her blog My Forever Son, Beth offers comfort and hope to others navigating grief, honoring the enduring bond between parent and child and celebrating the small joys that illuminate the path toward healing.

Meet the Author: Writing Through the Abyss

by Beth Brown

There are places that cannot be mapped, only entered—terrains of loss where language falters and the heart, stripped of its certainties, must learn to speak again. I am Beth Brown, a mother whose son, Dylan, died by suicide at twenty. My life, once measured by the ordinary rhythms of teaching literature and nurturing a child, was pierced in two: before and after. In the aftermath, I found myself wandering a wilderness where time bent, memory ached, and the world’s colors dimmed to the hush of grief.

On baby’s breath and angel wings,
You bring me love yet still,
— “On Baby’s Breath and Angel Wings”

I did not choose to become a chronicler of sorrow, but grief, relentless and unbidden, pressed its ink into my hands. I wrote because I could not bear the silence. I wrote because the ache demanded witness. In poetry, I found a way to hold both the weight of absence and the persistence of love—a language for the unspeakable, a vessel for memory, a place where my son’s name could still be spoken.

He left too soon,
Lifting life from June,
Casting torrents of rain.
— “He Left Too Soon”

There are nights when the world tilts, and I am returned to the moment of loss, the fracture that remade me. Yet even in the deepest dark, I have learned to listen for the faint music of hope, the pulse of love that endures beyond death.

Beat still my heart,
Beat still my mind,
Weary though thou art,
Carry his love along with thine,
Though heavy on thy shoulders
Crost fields throughout all time.
— “Beat Still My Heart”

My poems are not answers. They are offerings—fragments of a life lived in the shadow of absence, pieced together with longing and the fierce, unyielding devotion of a mother’s heart. They are the record of a journey through the labyrinth of grief, where each turn reveals both the ache of what is lost and the quiet radiance of what remains.

My child sleeps in a cradle of stars,
Gently rocked by the moon
Lullabies in his heart,
Heavens in galaxies swirl round to the sound
Of a mother and child’s love beating on.

Meteor showers, on the darkest of nights,
Bring comfort and joy to my child’s delight,
Aurora Borealis tints sky blue and green,
Where my child remembers his mother in dreams.

–“Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”

There are questions that haunt the bereaved: Could I have known? Could I have saved you? The mind circles these unanswerable riddles, but the heart, battered and tender, learns to rest in the mystery.

I’d have reached right in to your dark night’s soul—
I would have held on, I would have clutched you,
I would have never let you go
But you told me “Mom I love you”
Oh my child, if I’d only known.
— “Once Upon a Blue-Sky Moon”

In the landscape of loss, I have discovered that love is not diminished by death. It is transformed—becoming both ache and solace, shadow and light, the filament that binds the living to the lost.

Body, mind, soul, rough and ragged,
Weeping tears falling still throughout time,
Carrying weight of mourning and grieving
Falling broken when thou wert mine.
— “Beat Still My Heart”

I write for those who walk this wilderness with me—for the mothers and fathers, siblings and friends, whose lives have been marked by the unthinkable. My hope is that in these poems, you will find not only the echo of your own sorrow, but also the quiet assurance that you are not alone.

Starlight for a mobile twinkling ‘ere so bright,
To remember his mother that darkest of nights,
When slipped he from her grasp and fell through this earth,
Tumbling still planets, sun, folding time in rebirth.
— “Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”

That we might understand we cannot separate mental illness from physical illness and that try as we might, we cannot see inside another’s pain.

–“Ode to Suicide: That We Might Understand”

And how my heart keeps on beating
Is a mystery to all,
For without you beside me
Through life’s depth I crawl.

I live now life backwards
My heart beating in time,
To the life that we lived
When you, child, were mine.

Try as I might
I can’t seem to live,
For my dreams all belonged,
To your future forward lived.

—“Bury My Heart”

If you have come here searching for words to companion your grief, I welcome you. My poetry is not a map, but a lantern—casting light on the path we walk, together and alone, toward a horizon where love, undiminished, endures.

But boughs break and love falls through the cracks in the earth,
And the centre can’t hold when orbits, slung far, break their girth,
Gravitational interference, passing stars in the night,
Jetting orbs, falling stars in a moonless sky.
— “Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”

Grief is wild—untamed, unending, and full of shadows. Yet within its depths, I have found moments of light: a memory, a poem, the gentle rustle of leaves, the warmth of a cup of tea. My words are both ache and love, a testament that even in the deepest sorrow, we can find meaning, connection, and—sometimes—hope. Through poetry, I reach for my son and for all who walk this path. If you find yourself here, know that you are not alone, and that love—like poetry—endures.

If you wish to read more, my collection, Bury My Heart: 19 Poems for Grief and Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide is available on Amazon Kindle. and many other reflections await you at myforeverson.com.

Bury My Heart

Support Resources

If today feels especially heavy, I hope these resources offer a place to begin—some for ongoing support after suicide loss, others for immediate crisis care.

Resources for Suicide Loss Survivors

• After a Suicide Resource Directory — personalgriefcoach.net: a practical directory for those grieving a suicide death.
• Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors — allianceofhope.org: information, a blog, and an online forum for survivors.
• Friends for Survival — friendsforsurvival.org: support, a helpline, and community resources.
• HEARTBEAT: Grief Support Following Suicide — heartbeatsurvivorsaftersuicide.org: support groups, information, and help starting local chapters.

Professional Organizations

• American Association of Suicidology — suicidology.org: education, training, and survivor resources.
• The Compassionate Friends — compassionatefriends.org: support groups, community, and publications for bereaved families.
• The Dougy Center — dougy.org: grief resources for children, teens, and families.
• Link’s National Resource Center — thelink.org: suicide prevention, aftercare, and support resources.
• TAPS — taps.org: peer support and grief care after the death of a military loved one.
• LOSS — losscs.org: support groups, remembrance events, and postvention education.

Crisis Services

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — 988lifeline.org: call or text 988 anytime for free, confidential support.
• Crisis Text Line — crisistextline.org: text TALK to 741741 for English or AYUDA to 741741 for Spanish for free, 24/7 support.

NEWEST POSTS

Grief After Suicide

After My Son’s Suicide: Notes From the Long Wilderness of Grief

After My Son’s Suicide: Notes From the Long Wilderness of Grief “Grief does not leave us where it found us. It alters the rooms of the heart, and yet love keeps lighting them.” Where Grief Begins After a Child’s Suicide There are losses that divide a life into before and after, and the suicide of…

Read More

Grief After Suicide

The House Remembered Him: A Mother After Suicide Loss

The House Remembered Him: A Mother After Suicide Loss “Grief needs to be witnessed to heal.” — David Kessler After Dylan died, the house called me to supper with his voice. The floorboards near the back hall kept his secret route, the one he used when he came home late and tried not to awaken…

Read More

For Supporters

What to Say to Parents Who Lose a Child to Suicide

What to Say to Parents Who Lose a Child to Suicide “What deepens the loneliness after a child dies by suicide is not imperfect language. It is absence.” A memoir-informed, research-based guide for supporters who want to show up with compassion, steadiness, and words that do not wound. What This Piece Holds Why This Matters…

Read More

Grief After Suicide

A Letter to Grieving Parents After the Suicide Loss of a Child

A Letter to Grieving Parents After the Suicide Loss of a Child There are losses that do not fit inside ordinary language. This is one of them. A Letter to Grieving Parents After the Suicide Loss of a Child offers compassion and understanding for the unimaginable pain you are facing. A Letter to Grieving Parents…

Read More

About

About My Forever Son: Grief Support for Parents After Child Loss to Suicide A compassionate grief blog for parents facing child loss to suicide, and for those who love them About My Forever Son A place of remembrance, honest companionship, and gentle direction after child loss to suicide Some losses alter every part of life,…

Read More

Load more posts

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

Get new Posts delivered to your inbox.

Email Address

SUBSCRIBE