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
I Will Love You Forever Mom
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 with Grief
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
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.
Joy of Being Called Mom
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.
Hope
To those of you that still feel you aren’t even sure you want to be 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
A bereaved parent who lost her son to suicide-Excerpt from Rising Up-Because Love Lives Forever, My Forever Son
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
Latest Posts
Suicide Grief: Prolonged Grief Disorder?
Suicide Grief: Prolonged Grief Disorder? Suicide [grief] can be complicated by feelings of guilt, shame, responsibility, rejection, and stigmatization.National Library of Medicine, Grief interventions for people bereaved by suicide: A systematic review What Is Prolonged Grief Disorder? Known as complicated grief until 2022, the DSM-5 now defines complicated grief as Prolonged Grief Disorder. The latest…
Keep reading
A Poem About Losing a Child: If Earth Were Sky and Sky Above
A Poem About Losing a Child: If Earth Were Sky and Sky Above If earth were sky and sky above Then heart could hold this ache of love, Suspended, like rain, in clouds wanting to fall, But bound to sun’s joy because heart touches all. I fall ‘ere so slowly most cannot yet tell My…
Keep reading
As I Tuck You In: A Song About Child Loss
As I Tuck You In: A Lullaby for the Child I Lost Lyrics for the Song: As I Tuck You In As I Tuck You In As I tuck you in, I lay me downAs I hold you now, I lift my armsAs I fall asleep, I pray for youMy child, my love, my heart,…
Keep reading
Find Hope Here: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide
Find Hope Here: Poems About Losing a Child to Suicide A Lullaby for My Son: As I Tuck You In Get the Book
Keep reading
The Holidays Descend: Suicide Never Ends
The Holidays Descend: Suicide Never Ends And so it is I checked out last night, hoisted the white flag, decided the last thing I could really do is hole up and write, knowing I needed to walk but not having the wherewithal to walk here at home on my treadmill. So off I went to…
Keep readingLoading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
What Content is Included in My Forever Son?
I Am With You Always
As I Tuck You In: Song for Child Loss
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
Read Poems About Losing a Child
Get the Book
Latest Posts
Quiet Tears at 3 Years
Quiet Tears at 3 Years Your beat of heart hersNow her own to live on,Sick pulse of acheholding death in her arms.Beth Brown, My Forever Son, If Only a Mother’s Love Could Have Saved You 3 Years of Infinite Tears You are a “survivor of suicide,” and as that unwelcomedesignation implies, your survival—your emotionalsurvival—will depend…
Read More
Beat Still My Heart: A Poem About Losing My Son to Suicide
Beat Still My Heart: A Poem About Losing My Son to Suicide Beat Still My Heart 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. In the deepest dark of the bleakest night, If light there…
Read More
Living Backwards Going Forward-Year 3
Living Backwards Going Forward-Year 3 Living Backwards: A Sense of the Surreal Living Backwards Going Forward means that in the strangest of ways, it is always, for me, June 25th, 2012. Or some time before that. All the way back to March 1992 and up to June 2012. I suppose to some effect, my…
Read More
Carrying Ache and Love in Suicide Loss
Carrying Ache and Love in Suicide Loss Now, after all this time, Ache and Love walk together in my heart. Holding hands, one is never without the other, but ache and love have carried me—and carry me still. Beth Brown, My Forever Son Carrying Ache My life both imploded and exploded the day Dylan died. Inside…
Read More
You’re Free Now Child: A Song About Child Loss
You’re Free Now Child: A Song About Child Loss Songs for Child Loss I write poems and songs about child loss because I lost my only son. If you’ve lost a child, then you know the acute pain of grieving your child. It’s impossible, it’s ongoing, and it’s soul searching. I am always thinking about…
Read MoreLoading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
3 replies on “I Will Love You Forever Mom”
[…] Read More: Resources and Support Tea Rose, My Forever Son […]
[…] One Last Mother’s Day Card, My Forever Son […]
[…] Last Mother’s Day Card, My Forever Son […]