5 Years of Grief After Suicide Loss: For Here Now, I Stay

Japanese Maple Leaves in Red and Orange in Fall

5 Years of Grief After Suicide Loss: For Here Now, I Stay

For Here Now I Stay

These dark, incessant droning on of days, months, years, and most sadly of all, a lifetime, more so carve in us (should we choose and choose we must, for grief is not so clearly delineated in its outcome), a strange capacity to integrate both a lesser joy and a deep sorrow.

Losing Dylan has changed everything. Yes, I am to the point of feeling the highs of life again, though never so sweetly as to silence the ache of my heart that beats still for my son.
Beth Brown, My Forever Son

Red and Green Leaves of a Burning Bush in Fall

For Here Now I Stay

And so where from here?

For here now, I stay
For here now, I breathe your love

For here now, I am with you always

So many days, so much time having passed and yet, and yet, still as it has been still these past 5 years.

It is sometimes, Dylan, as if I am in some kind of fog, a thick can’t-see-clear kind of fog, a fog where I don’t know if what I am and what I see is real.

Were you? Are you? Where are you?

5 Years Out: The Shape of My Grief

I am five years, 1 month, and 14 days into this journey that though, not chosen, has become the construct of my life.

Five Years, 1 Month, and 14 Days.

My life is a paradox. I live in time that marches obediently along in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, and days, calendar years. I know it is 2017, late summer in the midwest, and a perfectly temperate day; and yet, and yet, all of me is not, in fact, here. I live undone and yet somehow caught still living, the ache between my limbs, my joints, tissues, and fibers where yet still, I am Dylan’s mom.

But it is through a haze, a blurring of what is and what is not, of what is here and what is not, a sense and grounding of what is tangible and what is not, that I now navigate. I know, I know. . .I should be writing about hope, that my life has been redeemed, reclaimed, re-invented, renewed, re-invigorated, resilient. but just for today, I don’t feel resilient.

And so I wonder, where from now this? For here now, I stay, linger, and yet to what cause? I have passed through so much. And I am utterly depressed.

The Shape Of My Grief at 3 Years:

Hope and Healing

Read More

For Here Now, I Stay

I do not know why time passes this quickly now. Yes, when we are young, the world is ours, old people are static and staid, our moms and dads are just that—moms and dads. I think with familiarity we miss the gradual stripping away of our youth years, and frankly, in youth, we are so inward-turned that it’s difficult if not impossible to usher forth compassion and awareness towards others, especially those from whom we see ourselves as being most far apart.

Change is inevitable. Death comes. Tragedy besets us. And really, and this I only realize in the hindsight of the wake of Dylan’s suicide, our lives are much more about sorrow and our response to enormous loss and impossible circumstances than our capacity and ability to feel and to cultivate joy.

How easy it is, in the moment, to feel exhilarated and high on wings of flight that sail only blue skies drenched in sun. But storms come what will, torrents of rain, ice, and hail pelt us from all angles, and skies black as nights without stars cover us with a darkness whose duration we cannot know. There is no presumed joy, though those around us want to garner false belief in this when we travel such dark skies.

The Deeper the Sorrow, the Greater the Love

How’s it go? The deeper the sorrow, the greater the love. Yes, but love stripped violently from our hands, touch, hearts, bodies, lives always casts shadows that will forever travel with us. Our bleakest nights do not bring greater capacity to feel joy, to feel the warmth of the sun, to see in color.

These dark, incessant droning on of days, months, years, and most sadly of all, a lifetime, more so carve in us (should we choose and choose we must, for grief is not so clearly delineated in its outcome), a strange capacity to integrate both a lesser joy and a deep sorrow.

Losing Dylan has changed everything. Yes, I am to the point of feeling the highs of life again, though never so sweetly as to silence the ache of my heart that beats still for my son.

Losing My Son to Suicide: Poems for Dylan

Now a Bestseller on Amazon Kindle

Suicide: 19 Poems to “Beat Still My Heart”
Suicide: 19 Poems to “Beat Still My Heart” Suicide: 19 Poems to “Beat Still My Heart” Suicide: 19 Poems to “Beat Still My Heart” reflects a decade of finding my way back (Losing a Child to Suicide: A Sad Welcome) after losing my son to suicide. Reflecting the deep sorrow, grief, and confusion left behind […]
A Poem About Losing My Child: Sorrow Buried in Love
A Poem About Losing My Child: Sorrow Buried in Love Sorrow Buried in Love So swish to sway to sweet lullaby, Baby will fall in dark of the night. Rocking cradle to grave turning truth upside down: Parents die first leaving children behind. In a world topsy-turvy that cannot make sense, Sacred trust shines the […]
Holiday Grief Series: “Helping Yourself Heal During the Holiday Season”
“Helping Yourself Heal During the Holiday Season” By Alan Wolfelt The suggestions below offer practical tips for coping with grief during the holidays. Alan D. Wolfelt, the author of these suggestions, writes prolifically about all aspects of grief. He offers practical suggestions for handling grief (including for teens and kids), and he addresses grief in […]
Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide
Living in the Glare Listen to Your Narrative It isn’t wrong, this narrative of yours. Isn’t something to be fixed. Adjusted. Changed. Rewritten. God knows you’d rewrite your narrative if you could. Consider the whole thing a tumultuous, torrid first draft. A rough sketch ill-constructed. The consequence lacking intention. Not giving words, shapes, ideas, even […]
Surviving Grief at the Holidays (Part of the Holiday Grief Series)
Surviving Grief at the Holidays Tending to a Broken Heart People say, “I can’t imagine.“ But then they do. They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer. That’s not it at all. It isn’t nostalgia for a time when things […]
“How I Survived the Suicide of My Son: 15 Tips for Grieving Parents”
Surviving Your Child’s Suicide Marcia Gelman Resnick wrote “How I Survived the Suicide of My Son: 15 Tips for Grieving Parents” in 2019, 20 years after losing her son to suicide. She shares her experience surviving the suicide of her son alongside 15 tips that may be helpful to other parents grieving the loss of […]