A Poem about Losing a Child to Suicide-“If Only a Mother’s Love Could Have Saved You”

Red Rose in June, My Forever Son

“If Only a Mother’s Love Could Have Saved You”

by Beth Brown

 Bones bear girth 
 where once, love birthed you, 
 arms cradled and rocking,
 love holding me to you.
  
 If only a mother's love
 could have saved you,
 been there to catch your fall 
 tears stilled by the heavens
 
 to where now and forever,
 you forever are.
  
 Your descent of life
 hers, labored love born,
 on wings beating too wildly
 and too soon your own.

 Your beat of heart hers,
 now her own to live on,
 sick pulse of ache
 holding death in her arms.

 Oh my heart
 and oh my son,
 without you life empties
 yet love forever beats on.

 And so now, my forever,
 "Why?" replete in my soul,
 which has always, and still child,
 moved in grooves you made whole.
  
 If only a mother's love 
 could have saved you—
 If only she had heard your heart cry,
 she could save you yet both together, 
 Take back that night you fell from the sky.
  
 ©Beth Brown,2021
 All rights reserved

Read What Happened at “My Forever Son”

My Forever Son

Where Love and Loss Bring Healing Home.

Remembering Dylan through Poems,

Memories, and Reflections from my Heart.

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“Bury My Heart”

Bury my heart
I’ve come undone
Sorting through this life
My son left behind.

And what I’m seeking I know
I’ll never find
His touch, his smile—
His still living his life.

And so instead I sift through
A still life dream
My heart and life with him
Forever it seemed.

And oh my son
I’m still paralyzed
In the grief you left me
8 years behind.

Where canst I go?
Whom canst I see?
When all I want with you
Is forever to be.

And how my heart keeps on beating
Is a mystery to all
For without you beside me
I live suspended in time.

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.

And so where now I goeth
And where knoweth I dwell,
Once again and all over
Life without you is hell.

I ache without breathing
For to breathe is to die,
Once again and all over
Without you in my life. 

by Beth Brown (for Dylan)

“Bury My Heart” ©Beth Brown, 2021
Bury My Heart

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