“Bury My Heart”: A Grief Poem for Parents Who Lost a Child to Suicide

“Bury My Heart”: A Grief Poem for Parents Who Lost a Child to Suicide

By Beth Brown | Poetry for Grieving Parents | June 15th

“Bury My Heart”: A Grief Poem for Parents Who Lost a Child to Suicide includes the poem “Bury My Heart” and a glimpse into a mother’s heart as she reflects on grief and healing on her son’s memorial date eight years after losing her child to suicide. This post addresses memorial dates, grief and healing, and coping with longterm grief after losing a child to suicide.

Sorting through the life my son left behind, eight years into grief.

“Bury my heart
I’ve come undone
Sorting through this life
My son left behind”

Beth Brown, “Bury My Heart”

“Bury My Heart”: Eight Years Into Grief

Introduction

If you are here because your child died by suicide, I am so deeply sorry. I know there is no easy way into these words. I wrote this grief poem, “Bury My Heart,” eight years into my grief, bearing down on Dylan’s memorial date, when I found myself once again sorting through what my son had left behind: his clothing, his music, his guitars, the tangible things that still connected me to him across the absence his death had left in my life.

At eight years, I had already lived through the first few years of excruciating pain. I had already come through seven memorial dates. I had already sifted and sorted through memories, through the things I could bear to touch and through the things I could not. Still, I had not let go of some of Dylan’s belongings, especially his clothing. I held his t-shirts close, embracing and hugging them, searching for and seeking my son who was not there.

The Heaviness of Grief at Memorial Dates

That day, “Bury My Heart” became a kind of list-making from the depths of a mother’s heart: sorting, sifting, remembering, questioning why I still hurt so much after so much raw grief had already passed through me. Then came the blunt truth. These things were all I had left to hold in my hands. I wanted Dylan. And I was grief-stricken because I knew I would not, could not, bring him back. Holding on to my son’s things could not bring him home, yet parting with Dylan’s belongings felt like losing him all over again.

“Bury My Heart” is a poem about the heavy grief of losing my only child to suicide bearing down on his eighth memorial date. This poem reflects the rawness of grief that can haunt bereaved parents as they approach their child’s anniversary date.

Memorial Dates When You’ve Lost a Child to Suicide

Circling round each year, memorial dates for bereaved parents mark the profound, painful passage of time to a date forever etched as the exact day, month, year, and time their child died. There are no easy answers for coping with this grief. The trauma of losing a child to suicide, the grief of losing a child, cannot hide in the ordinariness of a parent’s life.

I have not found a way to bypass the emotional exhaustion and draining away of what feels like all of me in the wake of losing my only child to suicide. As I approach Dylan’s memorial date, I know I lost my son to suicide on June 25, 2012 at 1:52 a.m. It was summer, warm, humid, and that season of the year where rain is predictable. But there is knowing, intellectually, and there is remembering, in my heart, traumatic feelings I cannot forget.

All the pain, all the trauma and chaos, the devastation of my life as I knew it, comes flooding back as my son’s anniversary rolls round each year. The deep understanding that my love for Dylan does not live inside his clothing, his guitars, his dresser drawer full of his teenaged years (Axe body spray, a deck of cards, Altoid mints, a Hot Wheels car, leftover odds and ends of Legos from his youth, a few coins, mechanical #2 pencils and Bic black-ink pens required by his high school) does not help me move through this necessary calendar date marked only by the shock and sorrow of his suicide.

Coping With Grief on Memorial Dates

As I’ve moved forward passing through multiple anniversary dates, I’ve come to know Dylan is with me still. I’ve learned ways to distract myself–movies, books–and I’ve learned journaling and writing help me process this impossible time. But I am farther out from my son’s death At eight years, all I could feel was the raw grip of his absence. Still though, I find memorial dates unbearably difficult.

A Note to Grieving Parents Who Lost a Child to Suicide

If you are a grieving parent, especially a parent grieving the suicide death of your only child, you may know this place too: the impossible work of deciding what to keep, what to release, what still hurts to touch, and what cannot be changed. “Bury My Heart” does not ask you to be beyond your grief. This poem stands inside the place where grief and love are buried together, that place where ache and love collide.

What This Poem Holds

• “Bury My Heart” speaks from the heart of a mother grieving the suicide death of her only child on his memorial date.
• The poem reflects on the sorrow of approaching her son’s eighth memorial date as she sorts and sifts through his belongings, deciding what to keep and pausing to reflect on all that’s been lost.
• “Bury My Heart”: A Grief Poem for Parents Who Lost a Child to Suicide reflects a parent’s difficult passage at memorial dates where longterm grief and healing can collide.
• In “Bury My Heart,” healing the deep grief of losing a child to suicide is expressed through the author’s undone heart as she sorts through her son’s belongings. The tactile feel of objects from her son’s past move her backwards through the pull of time, and she finds herself still searching for a son who should be here now.
• The poem’s power lies in its refusal to resolve what cannot be resolved. “Bury My Heart” lets catastrophic grief speak in its own voice.

“Bury My Heart” Poem

More Poems and Companion Pieces from My Forever Son

These poems and companion pieces continue the language and emotions of child loss, suicide loss, memory, love, guilt, longing, and the hard work of living after losing a child. Each one opens a different part of grief for parents who may be searching for words to echo the depth of their feelings.

• “Bury My Heart” — the featured poem in this post, written eight years into grief as I sorted through Dylan’s clothing, music, guitars, and the tangible pieces of the life he left behind. This poem speaks to the moment when holding what remains in your hands cannot quiet the anguish of wanting your child back.
• “Ode to Suicide: That We Might Understand” — a poem and reflection that asks readers to meet suicide loss with compassion rather than blame. It turns toward the suffering behind suicide, the devastation left for those who love the person who died, and the need to speak of suicide with mercy.
• “He Left Too Soon”  Poem: A Mother’s Deep Sorrow— a grief poem shaped by the sudden violence of the derecho storm around Dylan’s funeral and the impossible rupture of losing him in early summer. It holds the shock of a life ended too soon and the stunned aftermath of a mother standing in what remains.
• Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere
• “That All of Love Could Sweep Time Back” Poem — a poem of guilt, longing, and a mother’s desperate wish to undo what cannot be undone. It gives voice to the ache of wanting love itself to reach backward and save the child who could not be saved.
• Haunted by Guilt in Grief: “Still from Sky I’m Falling” — a poem about guilt in grief after losing a child to suicide where shock remains, questions that haunt circle back, and guilt can cling to grieving parents. Reflecting the author’s struggle after losing her only child, “Still from Sky I’m Falling” finds hope and forgiveness in the rhythms of nature, especially hawk, that can help a grieving parent come to terms with lingering feelings of guilt.
• “On Baby’s Breath and Angel Wings” — a poignant poem that holds tenderness beside the devastation of losing a child, returning to remembrance, beauty, and the fragile objects and images that gather around a child’s life after death.
• “Shaped by Love—and This Grief Come to Stay” — a poem in narrative form that reflects on refusing to let the stigma of suicide stigma define a child’s story. The poem centers love, memory, and the grief that remains because the child remains beloved.
• “White Peonies in Bloom A Devotional for Grieving Parents —is a two-part series for grieving parents: “White Peonies in Bloom”: A Devotional for Parents” offers reflections on healing and messages of hope even in the midst of ongoing grief. “White Peonies in Bloom:”A Mother’s Heartbreak After Loss” is a deeply personal poem and reflection returning to Dylan’s depression, his suicide attempts, Memorial Day, and the painful approach of June. The poem carries the dread and tenderness of the season before his death date.
• “I Want It All Back:” Remembering Dylan, My Forever Son— a poetic remembrance of Dylan and a mother’s longing for the ordinary days, the future, the time, and the presence suicide took away. The poem speaks plainly from the desire every bereaved parent knows: wanting their child and their life back before suicide loss.
• 11 Years After Suicide Loss: “I Still Want to Believe” — a poem searching for hope after losing Dylan to suicide, not as an easy answer but as something fragile, difficult, and necessary to reach for while still carrying grief.
• Finding Solace After Losing a Child: “Build a Life of Love Around the Loss” — a companion piece on finding a way to live with grief without abandoning love. It speaks to the slow work of making a life that can hold sorrow, memory, and a continuing bond with the child who died.
• Beat Still My Heart: A Mother’s Elegy for My Son rose out of the wreckage of losing my son and only child, Dylan, to suicide. It came not as explanation but as cry: the raw grief of a mother whose world had been torn open, whose love had nowhere left to go but into language. This poem, “Beat Still My. Heart” is both an elegy—a grief poem as it broke me, and grief as I learned to carry it written as a literary narrative using shipwreck imagery.
• Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere details the historic storm on June 29, 2012 that arose during the funeral for the author’s son. The narrative blends the author’s grief of losing her only child to suicide and the shock of his funeral with the sudden eruption of violent winds, downed power wires, and darkened skies blotting out the noonday sun. On a day drenched in sorrow, the author reveals a narrative where even nature felt as though it were grieving too.

About This Poem

I am Beth Brown, Dylan’s mom, and the writer behind My Forever Son. I lost my only child, Dylan, to suicide on June 25, 2012. Poetry became a way I could express my deep feelings of grief in a way that came from my heart. My poems move through the difficult emotions of grieving a child lost to suicide. Ultimately, my poems are about a mother’s deep love after the death of her child.

“Bury My Heart” belongs to that truth. The poem carries the sorrow of losing Dylan, the devastation of living without my only child, and the grief that continues because my love for son continues. I share here for grieving parents who seek expression for their grief and who seek “healing” and hope as they move through the loss of a child to suicide.

Companion Poems and Pieces from My Forever Son

• If You Just Lost Your Child is a compassionate guide for parents who have just lost a child to suicide. You are not alone. Gentle guidance, understanding, and support.
• A Letter to Grieving Parents After the Suicide Loss of a Child is a candid letter from the author of My Forever Son. Beth Brown speaks openly about navigating early grief, finding support resources, memorial dates, and more.
• Losing a Child to Suicide: A Parent’s Guide to Grief addresses early grief, understanding suicide loss, and survival in the first few days, months, and years after losing a child to suicide.
• Finding Immediate Support Resources for Suicide Loss Survivors–a heartfelt compilation of support resources, insightful books for navigating the pain of a suicide loss, and poignant poetry that expresses the profound sorrow of losing a child to suicide.
• Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice –The stigma surrounding suicide persists, hindering understanding and perpetuating the misconception that it is a selfish act. Suicide epidemiologists emphasize that suicide is not a decision, but a desperate attempt to escape unbearable suffering, often exacerbated by limited resources and support. Research and resources included.
• What to Say to Parents Who Lose a Child to Suicide A memoir-informed, research-based guide for supporters who want to show up with compassion, steadiness, and words that do not wound.
• I Lost My Son to Suicide: Grief, Healing, and Hope for Bereaved Parents includes a collection of pieces that have most helped me speak honestly about suicide grief, remembering Dylan with love, and offering companionship to other parents learning to live with a loss that changes everything.
• After My Son’s Suicide: Notes From the Long Wilderness of Grief–Healing after my son’s suicide has meant understanding that grief does not have closure. And “healing” a forever wound of my heart? Impossible. “Healing” is only the rough-hew edges of an understanding that belongs to a different world entirely. But somehow, over these past fourteen years of grief, I have found “healing” in small things. Here’s what helped.
• A Letter to Grieving Parents: Finding Hope After Loss–A guide for getting through those first few days, weeks, months, and where to go for help, support resources, navigating grief after suicide loss, and ways to cope with traumatic loss.

A Message for the Parent Reading This

I will not tell you that hope makes this loss less devastating. I do not believe that. What I can say is that hope, when it becomes possible, may be very small, quiet, and in daily life. It may be the fact that you made it through one more hour. It may be drinking water, feeding the dog, answering one text, touching your child’s photograph, saying your child’s name, or letting yourself rest when grief has feels heavy.

For a long time, survival may be the work. That is not failure. That is grief after the suicide death of a child. If you are still here, still breathing, still loving your child with all that remains of you, then something in you is holding on. Let that be enough for today.

If You Need Immediate Support

Online Directory for Coping with Grief, Trauma, and Distress

After A Suicide Resource Directory: Coping with Grief, Trauma, and Distress
http://www.personalgriefcoach.net
This online directory links people who are grieving after a suicide death to resources and information.

Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors
http://www.allianceofhope.org
This organization for survivors of suicide loss provides information sheets, a blog, and a community forum through which survivors can share with each other.

Friends for Survival
http://www.friendsforsurvival.org
This organization is for suicide loss survivors and professionals who work with them. It produces a monthly newsletter and runs the Suicide Loss Helpline (1-800-646-7322). It also published Pathways to Purpose and Hope, a guide to building a community-based suicide survivor support program.

HEARTBEAT: Grief Support Following Suicide
http://heartbeatsurvivorsaftersuicide.org
This organization has chapters providing support groups for survivors of suicide loss in Colorado and some other states. Its website provides information sheets for survivors and a leader’s guide on how to start a new chapter of HEARTBEAT.

Professional Organizations

American Association of Suicidology
suicidology.org • (202) 237-2280
Promotes public awareness, education and training for professionals, and sponsors an annual Healing After Suicide conference for suicide loss survivors. In addition to the conference, they offer a coping with suicide grief handbook by Jeffrey Jackson. This booklet is also available in Spanish.

The Compassionate Friends
compassionatefriends.org • (877) 969-0010
Offers resources for families after the death of a child. They sponsor support groups, newsletters and online support groups throughout the country, as well as an annual national conference for bereaved families.

The Dougy Center
The National Center for Grieving Children & Families
dougy.org • (503) 775-5683
Publishes extensive resources for helping children and teens who are grieving a death including death by suicide. Resources include the “Children, Teens and Suicide Loss” booklet created in partnership with AFSP. This booklet is also available in Spanish.

Link’s National Resource Center for Suicide Prevention and Aftercare
thelink.org/nrc-for-suicide-prevention-aftercar • 404-256-2919
Dedicated to reaching out to those whose lives have been impacted by suicide and connecting them to available resources.

Tragedy Assistance Programs for Survivors (TAPS)
taps.org/suicide • (800) 959-TAPS (8277)
Provides comfort, care and resources to all those grieving the death of a military loved one through a national peer support network and connection to grief resources, all at no cost to surviving families and loved ones.

LOSS
losscs.org
Offers support groups, remembrance events, companioning, suicide postvention and prevention education, and training to other communities interested in developing or enhancing their suicide postvention and prevention efforts.

Crisis Services

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
988lifeline.org
Call or text 988 (press 1 for Veterans, 2 for Spanish, 3 for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults) or chat 988lifeline.org
A 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention service available to anyone in suicidal crisis. You will be routed to the closest possible crisis center in your area. With crisis centers across the country, their mission is to provide immediate assistance to anyone seeking mental health services. Call for yourself, or someone you care about. Your call is free and confidential.

Crisis Text Line
crisistextline.org
Text TALK to 741-741 for English
Text AYUDA to 741-741 for Spanish
Provides free, text-based mental health support and crisis intervention by empowering a community of trained volunteers to support people in their moments of need, 24/7.

About the Author

Beth Brown is Dylan’s mom and the writer behind My Forever Son, a blog for grieving parents living after the death of a child. After losing her only child, Dylan, to suicide on June 25, 2012, Beth began writing from the uncharted terrain of child loss, suicide loss, love, memory, and the long work of learning how to live with grief carried in the deepest part of the heart.

Alongside “Bury My Heart,” Beth writes many poems for bereaved parents—poems about the first raw years of child loss, the ache of memorial dates, the silence after suicide, the love that remains, and the difficult movement between holding on, letting go, remembering, and surviving. Her poetry does not ask grief to be tidy or small. It gives language to the places parents may recognize but may not yet be able to say aloud.

Readers who connect with Beth’s poetry can find more of her work in her Kindle book, Where a Mother’s Grief Resides: Poems of Child Loss and the Work of Living On, available on Amazon Kindle. The collection gathers poems from a mother’s heart after the loss of her son and offers grieving parents words for sorrow, memory, love, and the grief work that continues because love continues.

Closing Thought

If “Bury My Heart” meets you in the place where you are still sorting through your child’s things, your memories, your questions, or the terrible permanence of suicide loss, may you take from it only this: you are not failing because grief still hurts. Love remains, even when what we can hold in our hands must change.

Wherever you are in your grief today—holding on, letting go, unable to decide, or simply trying to make it through another memorial season—you are still your child’s parent. Your love has not ended. Your grief has not disqualified you from healing. And your child’s life, name, and place in your heart remain part of your story.