I’ll Love You Forever Mom
“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”
Robert Munsch, Love Your Forever
Three Years Out After Losing Dylan
Originally Published 2016
Memorial Dates
It has been 3 years of acute agony, pain, and the hell of grieving the loss of my only child to suicide. Beautiful, albeit bittersweet memories come sweeping in and across the landscape of my heart and for a precious moment in time, I am reminded of and surrounded by all the precious love bonds between Dylan and me.
Still Struggling
Other times, I am caught off guard in deep, deep ache and heart-wrenching pain. My son is dead. Dylan is dead. Tears always come, not always publicly, as I am sometimes able to make it to my car, or leave where I am to go home, other times I just let the tears fall. I still sob after three years, just not as long and usually on my own, although this is not always the case. My cat comes to me when I cry. She circles my feet until I pick her up, then tucks into me. Perhaps Dylan is with me still.
One Last Happy Mother’s Day Card
Joy of Being Called Mom
Yesterday, I found a Mother’s Day card from 2012. Dylan would dead within a month a couple of weeks post Mother’s Day. It is bright orange, Dylan’s favorite color as a child, and it is beautiful. I wasn’t looking for the card, and it kind of just appeared. I saw it sticking out of a pile of other cards and things I’ve been intending to sort, organize, and put in a keepsake box.
The card says “mom, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t need your love and support. . .and I can’t imagine a time when I won’t. Happy Mother’s Day With Love.”
Dylan signed it “I’ll love you forever mom. Love Dylan.”
That did me in. It’s now on my desk beside me, propped open to the “I’ll love you forever mom, Love, Dylan.”
He knew, he just couldn’t tell me. I love him so much still, always, forever. Love doesn’t die. It is only this interim between now and when I get to see him again that brings ache and sadness and a constant heavy heart.
Beth, Dylan’s Mom
March 19, 1992-June 25, 2012
Forever my heart, my wings, my love
I did, in the beginning of my grief, believe I was telling Dylan’s stories.
I now see I am telling my own.
Rising Up Because. . .
- I will not let the world forget my son lived.
- Grief has brought me to the edge of myself.
- And it’s brought me to that place where I can’t stand any more pain, where all that’s left is 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.
Dylan and Mom, My Forever Son, One Last Mother’s Day Card 
My Forever Son, Dylan-A Mother’s Day to Remember Always 
One Last Mother’s Day Card, My Forever Son 
I Miss You, “When Pain Comes to Stay” Red Rose in June 
Pink and White Phlox in Spring, My Forever Son
Hope
To those of you that still feel you aren’t even sure you want to be
A bereaved parent who lost her son to suicide-Excerpt from Rising Up-Because Love Lives Forever, My Forever Son
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.
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.
Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Rising Up
What Content is Included in My Forever Son?
I Am Always With You
Where to Find Support, Resources, and Hope-Losing a Child to Suicide
Insights and Stigma
Stories by Parents Who Have Lost a Child to Suicide
As I Tuck You In As I tuck you in, I lay me down As I hold you now, I lift my arms As I fall asleep, I pray for you My child, my love, my heart, I’m with you too My child, my love, my heart, May God keep and love you And you will be forevermore Safe from this world and so adored And God will be your comforter And I will always thank God for rescuing you And I will always praise God for loving you too And so I live my life in memory Surrendering to God, what now must be But here on earth I know the angels sing When I hear your voice I know God’s listening And I will always be your mother here And I will speak your name for all to hear And God will be with you ’til I get there My child on earth above in heaven’s care My child on earth above in heaven’s care- Beth Brown, "As I Tuck You In," My Forever Son
As I Tuck You In
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