Resilience Is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide

Resilience Is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide

ABOUT THIS POST: Resilience Is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide provides a deeply emotional and personal experience of a mother who lost her only child to suicide. Focusing on the enduring impact of this tragedy on her life, the author highlights the inextricable link between love and grief. The author’s raw emotions and powerful storytelling draw the reader into her experience, creating a profound connection.The inclusion of personal poetry and reflections adds depth to the narrative, allowing readers to empathize with the author’s journey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Eleven years ago, I lost my only child, my 20-year-old son, to suicide. My Forever Son: Chronicling Grief, Hope, and Healing After Losing My Son to Suicide was launched in 2015, and this blog has grown to encompass poems, songs, narratives, and informative articles.

Once upon a time in a lifetime before Dylan’s suicide, I taught rhetoric, composition, American Literature and British Literature. I’ve written a book of poems about losing a child to suicide, Bury My Heart: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide.

ABOUT THIS BLOG: Losing My Only Child to Suicide: My Forever Son Backstory and About My Forever Son detail my journey to writing this blog.

What Happened? and About Dylan provide a glimpse into Dylan’s (and my) life, and Twenty Years is a guest blog post by my sister, Dylan’s aunt.

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Resources & Strategies

Resources and Strategies for Coping with Suicide Loss

• Read More: Help, Hope, Healing After Suicide Loss: Support, Books, Resources
• Read More: Surviving the Suicide of Your Child: Support, Resources, Hope
• Read More: Find Hope Here: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide
• Read More: What to Say to Parents Who Lose a Child to Suicide

Resources for Coping with the Heaviness of Guilt in Suicide Grief

• Read More: Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide
• Read More: The Burden in Grief: Navigating Guilt After Losing a Child to Suicide
• Read More: Coping with Guilt After Losing a Child to Suicide: Strategies and Support
• Read More: Self Blame and Guilt: I Couldn’t Save My Son

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Living in the Glare

His Narrative Just Started

His narrative just started. Only a few chapters in.
A promising start. Having left so much unsaid,
Unwritten. His chasm, your darkness.
His absence, dark ache your heart.

Beth Brown, Resilience Is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide, My Forever Son

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 context, enough thought. A hapless quick free-write in the middle of the night. Rushed. Out of character, both for him and for you.

“It just isn’t right,” say some.

“Maybe it wasn’t suicide,” say others.

“Didn’t that happen a long time ago?” asks your friend.

“He wouldn’t want to see you so sad” says your community.

So Much Pressure to Revise Your Narrative

So much pressure to revise your narrative. Erase the version of the narrative you’ve lived. Revise. Rewrite. Omit. Delete.

Change your life’s story, the way everything changed that day he ended his own. His narrative just started. Only a few chapters in. A promising start. Having left so much unsaid, unwritten. His chasm, your darkness. His absence, dark ache your heart.

As if you could undo what was done. As if you could live past the pain and not feel the whole of you disappearing in your life’s tragic moment. Its fatal eclipse. Your narrative forever changed.

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Resilience Is

Shaped By Grief: Then, Now, and Ongoing

What if, instead, that someone, or others, (or even you) wants to hear your narrative?

How your life in all ways —emotional, physical, mental, and intellectual—is shaped by your grief: then, now, and ongoing.

Beth Brown, Resilience Is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide, My Forever Son

Shaped by Grief

But what if someone, somewhere, (even yourself) does not ask you to change your narrative?

What if, instead, that someone, or others, (or even you) wants to hear your narrative?

How your life in all ways —emotional, physical, mental, and intellectual—is shaped by your grief: then, now, and ongoing.

What would happen if they (or even you) sit with your grief? Hear the song your heart sings, even if melancholic and haunting?

Listen to your story? Even tragic. Even with chapters that do not end well. Chapters needing rewritten, but that cannot be. Chapters that have changed the trajectory of your life. The chapter that day he plunged, en medias res, changing all that you are. All that your were. All that you will be.

Read More: Beat Still My Heart: A Poem About Losing My Son to Suicide

Read More: Find Hope Here: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide

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Resilience is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide

For to Lose Your Narrative is to Lose Him All Over Again

For to lose your narrative is to lose him all over again. All. Over. Again. As if you haven’t lost him enough these minutes; hours; days; months; years; 10 now and counting

Beth Brown, Resilience Is Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide, My Forever Son

For to lose your narrative is to lose him all over again. All. Over. Again.

As if you haven’t lost him enough these minutes; hours; days; months; years; 10 now–and counting.

As much now as then, when abruptly, everything about your narrative changed and you started chasing minutes, hours, days, months, years. As if you could bring them back.

Restore all the time before that date, time, month, year.

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Ending His Narrative Meant Ending Your Own

That date where ending his narrative meant ending your own.

Your story, your narrative, en medias res: Changed forever because love and grief cannot be separated.

Love–and grief–have a way of changing us forever, a new permanence come to stay where once we thought ourselves immutable.

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Shaped By Love

Shaped by love (19 years and not knowing I was counting), I am now shaped by this grief come to stay. A permanence in love’s shadow, I am etched forever by the shape of his love.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide, My Forever Son

Shaped by love (19 years and not knowing I was counting), I am now shaped by this grief come to stay. A permanence in love’s shadow, I am etched forever by the shape of his love.

Read More: What Has Changed in 4 Years of Grieving the Loss of My Son to Suicide

Read More: The Shape of My Grief at 3 Years: Hope and Healing

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Bury My Heart: A Book of Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide

Bury My Heart: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide

Bury My Heart includes five sections, each with a collection of poems based around the section’s title: A Deep Sorrow; Earth, Sky, Moon, Stars; Why?; In Losing You, I Lost Me Too; and That My Love Be With You Always

Earth, Sky, Moon, Stars: This section of the book “Bury My Heart: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide” explores the vastness of the universe and the natural elements that surround us. Through beautifully crafted poems, it reflects on the interconnectedness of life and the profound sense of loss experienced when a child is lost to suicide.

Why?: The author delves into the complex emotions and thoughts that arise after the tragic loss of a child to suicide. Through poignant poems, they grapple with the haunting question of “why?” – seeking understanding, grappling with guilt, and searching for meaning amidst the devastating experience of losing a loved one to such a tragic act.

In Losing You, I Lost Me Too: Delves deep into the immense personal impact of losing a child to suicide. Through raw and introspective verses, the author explores the profound grief and the psychological journey of losing oneself in the aftermath of such a tragedy. It delves into the feelings of emptiness, self-blame, and the struggle to find a sense of identity after such a profound loss.

That My Love Be With You Always: The final section of Bury My Heart: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide is a heartfelt tribute to the enduring love and connections that transcend death. It embraces the idea of eternal love and seeks solace in the belief that the love for the lost child will always remain. Through tender and poignant verses, the author celebrates the enduring bond and the hope that their love will continue to guide and protect the departed child.

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