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Rising Up-Because Love Lives Forever

Photo close up of vivid and bright yellow/orange flower in summer surrounded by green leaves

Rising Up because…

Love lives forever.

My son lives yet still.

I will be with Dylan again.

As long I live, Dylan lives too.

Dylan lives on through all that I am.

Dylan’s voice is now my own.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son
2 vivid yellow coneflowers reflecting sunlight
Hope, My Forever Son

Rising Up because…

I will not let the world forget my son lived. My memories, stories, and writing keep his life going on. I did, in the beginning of my grief, believe I was telling Dylan’s stories. I now see I am telling my own.

Grief has brought me to the edge of myself–that place in despair where I have screamed: “Bring it! Just Bring It!” then collapsed into tears.

And it’s brought me to that place where I can’t stand any more pain, where all that’s left is surrender. Not willingly. Not because my heart has healed. And not because I’ve finished grieving the loss of my son. That place where sky meets sun in the middle of a storm, that rainbow, love living with loss, loss still there but love shining too. That’s surrender.

I straddle love for and loss of my son. In the beginning, I could only see pain. But I’ve learned to live carrying both loving memories of Dylan and this impossible pain of devastating loss.

“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”

-Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

That place where sky meets sun in the middle of a storm, that rainbow, love living with loss, loss still there but love shining too. That’s surrender.

Rising Up because. . .

“To those of you that still feel you aren’t even sure you want to be
here and you can’t imagine ever being happy again. The pain does
change, it softens. You will want to live again and be able to enjoy
life again. It will never be like before but the crushing, all
consuming pain you feel right now will soften. You will be able to
live with it. It just becomes part of you.”

A bereaved parent who lost her son to suicide

My son, my love, my pain, my heart, all beating on inside me, an ache I’ve learned to carry which at some point these past 8 years, has become a part of me.

Beth, Dylan’s Mom, My Forever Son, Memorial Dates: Reflections at 8 Years After Losing My Son

“You will be able to live with [the pain]. It just becomes part of you.”

A bereaved parent

“You will be able to live with the pain. It just becomes part of you.”

Parent

Rising Up because. . .

I am having to reinvent and invent anew absolutely everything about my life now.

Because there are no templates for my way of living.

Because in the midst of great darkness, I can only live if I can learn to see.

Because I know I will see my son again when God sees fit and it is time.

Beth, Dylan’s Mom

Rising Up because. . .

I am his mom! I have always and will always love and talk about my son.
I know my son lives on–just not here on this plane, in this realm, on this earth as I so know it.
I find him yet still in so many ways. Losing Dylan has defined me.

Dylan, My Forever Son

Rising Up because. . .

I carry on carrying on because in the rising, I carry Dylan too. We are one. Always were. Always will be. And some day, some day–we will be together again.

Photo of the Author, Beth Brown, with a quote: "You will be able to live with [the pain]. It just becomes part of you.

“You will be able to live with [the pain]. It just becomes part of you.”

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