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

Struggling to Survive Grief After the Suicide of My Son

Suicide changes everything. It rests in the margins of my life, an undertow beneath all else concurrent and elsewhere.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Suicide Changes Everything: Struggling to Survive Grief After the Suicide of My Son

I rose and drowned a million deaths at sea, being forced under by tidal waves, shoved down deep past violent destruction and floating and sinking debris, my life as I knew it, rising only momentarily to gasp, choke, scream only to be plunged forcibly down again.

I lived in exile from everything–my own breath, eating, sleeping, moving. I couldn’t do anything I’d always done–work, listen to music, play music, cook, shop, take care of myself, shower, get food in my body, exercise, smile, laugh, be present, be there for any of my family or friends, drive, walk, live. I had to be reminded to breathe.

A Great and Terrible Tsunami

I had finally surfaced from the ferocity of the storm and there I was, alone without my son. I didn’t want to live without him.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Suicide Changes Everything: Struggling to Survive Grief After the Suicide of My Son

I am Beth, Dylan’s Mom. I am in my third year of learning to keep on keeping on after losing my only child, my beloved 20-year-old son, to suicide on June 25, 2012. My life forever changed that day, and who I was died too.

A great and terrible Tsunami swept in and through everything I knew and loved and cared about in life, and all that I was and loved and cared about was swept out into a violent, retching ocean, infinite fathoms deep, defying any earthly description here, blacker than a starless night.

Tidal Waves of Grief

I couldn’t hear, see, be, hold, reach for, grasp, touch, feel anything familiar, loved or comforting. I couldn’t find my son and reached, grasped, searched for him for days, weeks, months on end. When I came to, I realized that somehow, I was still alive and that Dylan had been washed out to sea. I had finally surfaced from the ferocity of the storm and there I was, alone without my son. I didn’t want to live without him. Suicide Changes Everything.

Beat Still My Heart

I lived this way for as long as it took to come to, the tidal waves to come less frequently, for me to be enough above the surface of the deep water to catch my breath. When I did, I couldn’t speak. I had no words, and for the first time ever, learned what keening really means. I cried out to God, to Dylan, to life, but in the end, it changed nothing.

My son and I had been washed out to sea and in coming to, I moved into what will now be the forever season of my life–living without Dylan, being forever a bereaved mother, living outside the realm of “normal” for most people, having to travel a grief and life journey for which I had no equipping, no guide, no preparation, no direction. It will be 3 years come June since Dylan died and I am only just now beginning to get my bearings.

Struggling to Survive Grief After the Suicide of My Son

Getting to a Safe Shore

And so it is, slowly, in a stretch of days, weeks, months, years, I have somehow found the strength to get to a safe shore. But my world is small and I find I am on an island set apart from how most people live. I am learning to integrate Dylan’s death into my life, and on my best days, know, sense, feel, and understand that he lives yet still and is right there with me in everything I think, say, speak, and do.

But I am on a journey and truth be told, some days are just impossible. Holidays, Dylan’s birthday in March, his memorial day in June, Mother’s Day, seasons of the year, summer as a whole because in what used to be one of my favorite months of the year, my son took his life.

I struggle still moving from January through June because Dylan attempted suicide 4 times (January, February, March, and May) before he died by suicide in June. Each suicide attempt was worse than the last: an endless stream of critical care units; emergency rooms; psych wards; antidepressants; counseling; treatment centers; lock-down units; and suicide watches. I was filled with infinite love for my son as well as the madness of not being able to make my son want to live.

Suicide Changes Everything-Struggling to Survive Grief After the Suicide of My Son

If Love Could Have Saved Him

If love could have saved him, Dylan would have lived forever. And actually, because I have faith and hope in seeing Dylan again, in being able to spend forever with him, I believe Dylan does live on, just not here in this realm where I can see, touch, hear, feel him–his love, his laugh, his quick wit, his beautiful original music.

I miss him everywhere, all at once, all the years, 19 years, 3 months, and 6 days, and I am gradually growing to understand I will never know why Dylan couldn’t stay. I hear him (in my mind) say, “I had to go.”

I saw Dylan for the last time on Sunday, June 24th, 2012 when I brought him what he had asked me to get for him–Taco Bell, a Volcano burrito with extra fire sauce. I told Dylan I loved him, stood up on my tip-toes to hug him, and Dylan said, “I love you, too.” These are my son’s last words to me.

Beat still my heart ,
Beat still my mind,
Weary though thou art,
Carry his love along with thine,
Though heavy on thy shoulders,
Crost fields throughout all time.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Beat Still My Heart: A Poem About Losing My Son to Suicide

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I have struggled, I struggle still, but I am at my best and most at peace when I realize Dylan really did–and still does–love me deeply. 

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